“Yes; it was a knife.”
“No,” he cried wildly. “No; you saw nothing. You did not see me pick up that knife.”
“I did, father,” said Claire, shrinking from him with an invincible repugnance.
“You did not,” he whispered. “You dare not say you did, when I say be silent.”
“Oh, father! father!” she cried with a burst of agony.
“It means life or death,” he whispered, grasping her arm so tightly that his fingers seemed to be turned to iron. “Come,” he cried with more energy, “hold the light.”
He crossed the room and opened the folding-doors, going straight into the drawing-room, when the roar of the surf upon the shore grew louder, and as Claire involuntarily followed, she listened in a heavy-dazed way as her father pointed out that a chair had been overturned, and that the window was open and one of the flower-pots in the balcony upset.
“The jasmine is torn away from the post and balustrade,” he said huskily; “someone must have climbed up there.”
Claire did not speak, but listened to him as he grew more animated now, and talked quickly.
“Let us call up Isaac and Morton,” he said. “We must have help. The doctor should be fetched, and—and a constable.”