'She knew that I hadn't done anything wrong, that we were merely friends.'
The conversation paused a moment, then Morton said: 'It seems to have been a mysterious kind of death. What did he die of?'
'Ah, no one ever knew. The doctors could make nothing of his case. He had been complaining a long time. They spoke of overwork, but—'
'But, what?'
'I believe he died of slow poisoning.'
'Slow poisoning! Who could have poisoned him?'
'Ellen Gibbs.'
'What an awful thing to say…. I suppose you have some reason for suspecting her?'
'His death was very mysterious. The doctors could not account for it. There ought to have been a post-mortem examination.' Feeling that this was not sufficient reason, and remembering suddenly that Ralph held socialistic theories and was a member of a sect of socialists, she said: 'Ralph was a member of a secret society…. He was an anarchist—no one suspected it, but he told me everything, and it was I who persuaded him to leave the Brotherhood.'
'I do not see what that has to do with his death by slow poisoning.'