The prosecutor proceeded, solemnly:
“I tell you, gentlemen, that these two people, Ollie Chase and Joseph Newbolt, alone in that house that night, alone in that house for two days before this tragedy darkened it, before the blood of gray old Isom Chase ran down upon its threshold, these two conspired in their guilt to hide the truth. 324
“If this woman would open her lips, if this woman would break the seal of this guilty compact and speak, the mystery of this case would dissolve, and the heroic romance which this defendant is trying to put over the squalid facts of his guilt would turn out only a sordid story of midnight lust and robbery. If conscience would trouble this woman to speak, gentlemen of the jury–but she has no conscience, and she has no heart!”
He turned again to Ollie, savagely; her mother covered her with her arm, as if to protect her from a blow.
“There she cowers in her guilty silence, in what hope God alone knows, but if she would speak––”
“I will speak!” Ollie cried.
CHAPTER XXI
OLLIE SPEAKS
Ollie’s voice, low and steady in earnest determination, broke the current of his denunciation as a knife severs a straining cord. The suddenness of her declaration almost made the prosecutor reel. She was sitting up, straight and outwardly calm, pushing her cloak and other detached belongings away from her with an unconscious movement of disencumbering herself for some desperate leap.
“I’ll tell everything–if you’ll let me–now,” said she, rising to her feet.