“Liar—wretch—I defy you!” exclaimed Torrens, his energy suddenly reviving as he saw the absolute necessity of meeting with boldness a charge which he felt convinced his wife could not prove against him: for how could she possibly entertain anything more serious than a bare suspicion?
“Harsh words and abuse will not intimidate me,” said she, in a quiet voice; “and all these variations in your manner—nervousness at one moment, terror the next, and then excitement—only tend to confirm me in my ideas. Listen, old man—and see whether I have just ground for those ideas, and whether you could explain away my tale, if told to the nearest police-magistrate.”
Torrens groaned audibly, and fell back in his chair—but not insensible—only in the exhaustion of his physical and the prostration of his moral energies; and his eyes glared in consternation on the countenance of the accusing fiend whose very presence would have been intolerable, even if he had committed no crime for her to be able to accuse him of.
“Listen, I say,” resumed the implacable old woman. “You were at Percival’s house a few moments before myself and daughter called upon him. You seemed to be very miserable—so miserable that you wished to obtain assistance from him. These were the very words he used to me; and he observed likewise that he never gave—consequently you extorted nothing from him. But you watched through the window-shutters, from the outside, the interview which took place between him and myself and daughter: you beheld the gold and the notes displayed upon the table; and when the old miser was once more alone, you entered the house—and—and you murdered him with a bludgeon!”
Torrens started convulsively, and endeavoured to give utterance to an ejaculation of denial; but his tongue clave to the roof of his mouth, and his throat was as parched as if he had been swallowing ashes.
“Yes—you murdered him,” repeated Mrs. Mortimer, apparently dwelling with fiendish delight upon the horrible accusation: “you beat the wretched man to death—your blows were dealt with a cruel, a merciless effect. Then you plundered the iron safe—you took all the treasure contained in the tin-case—gold and bank-notes to the amount of several thousands of pounds!”
“It is not true—it is not true!” said Torrens, partially recovering the power of speech.
“But it is true—all true—precisely as I now repeat the details,” cried Mrs. Mortimer, emphatically.
“You are mad to think me the possessor of such a treasure, when you find me in this miserable place, with thread-bare garments, and surrounded by every proof of a poverty amounting almost to utter destitution,” said Torrens, his courage to meet the charge somewhat reviving as he flattered himself that the argument just used was decisive and unanswerable.
“Do you imagine me to be so thoroughly ignorant of the world as to become your dupe on such easy terms?” demanded the old woman, in a tone of withering scorn. “Look at all I have passed through, and then ask yourself whether it be possible to deceive and mislead me! No, no—I understand it all. You believe that suspicion will never fall upon the wretched inmate of such a wretched place,” she continued, glancing slowly around the cellar—“and your calculation is a correct one. Here might you have concealed yourself—here might you have passed some weeks in apparent poverty, until the storm should have blown over. But it was destined that one person should obtain a clue to your guilt and a trace to your lurking-hole—and that person is myself! Nay, to convince you how well all your late proceedings are known to me, I have only to mention the fact that a few days ago you visited the cottage which once bore your name——”