Mrs. Balfame had sprung to her feet. "Did you do it? Did you?"
"Aha! I can make even you believe it. No, I did not, but I couldn't prove an alibi if my life depended upon it. I can make the Judge and the jury believe—"
"And do you think I would permit—"
"They will believe me. And Dr. Anna—who would doubt her testimony that my appearance and conduct were highly suspicious that night on the marsh road? And what could you disprove? There was a man in that grove, was there not?"
"Yes, but not you; I don't know why, but I could swear to that. I shall—if you do anything so mad—tell the whole truth about myself."
"What good would that do? Balfame was killed with a forty-one revolver. Yours was a thirty-eight."
"How do you know that?"
"I found it the night I spent in your house—the night of your arrest. I knew that you never would have gone out to head off a burglar without a revolver—any more than the jury would have believed it. I found the pistol. Never mind the long and many details of the search. It is in my safe. I kept it on the off chance that it might be necessary to produce it after all."
"But I fired at him. I hardly knew that I was firing, until I felt the revolver in my hand go off. Perhaps it was a suggestion from that tense figure so close to me, intent upon murder. Perhaps I merely felt I must—must—I have never been able to analyse what I did feel in those terrible seconds. It doesn't matter. I did. And you? You know I fired with intent to kill. Did you guess at once?"
"Oh, yes. But it doesn't matter. You were not yourself, of course. You had what is called an inhibition—as maddened people have when fighting their way out of a burning theatre. I only wish you had told me. I—that is to say, it is never fair to keep your counsel in the dark."