“But, Antony,” she exclaimed, as I finished, and she now turned her face towards mine, “can this be true? Is it certain that it was Mr Lister?”
“Yes,” I said; “certain. His letters to poor Linny show all that; and she talks about him in her delirium, poor girl!”
“I cannot believe it of him,” she said; “and yet—How long is it since your friend was hurt?”
I told her the very night, from my pocket-book.
“His hands were injured from a struggle, he told me, with some drunken man,” she said half to herself. Then aloud, “Antony, did you see either of these letters?”
“Yes; Mr Hallett asked me to look at them, to see if I knew the handwriting as well as he; and, besides, in one of her intervals of reason, poor Linny clung to her brother, and begged him never to let Mr Lister see her again.”
“Did she say why?” asked Miss Carr hoarsely.
“Yes; she said he had such power over her that she was afraid of him.”
A half-hysterical sob seemed to rise to Miss Carr’s lips, but her face was very stern and unchanged.
Then, rising quickly, as if a sudden thought occurred to her, she crossed the room to a little Japanese cabinet, and took out a short, thick cord, as it seemed to me; but, as she placed it in my hands, I saw that it was a short hair watch-guard, finished with gilded swivel and cross.