"And if not?" Her voice broke out of its even register.
He made an abrupt movement, and she cried out:
"I know! I know! Polly told me—Sam tells her everything. He suspects you. He knows that Broderick does. But you don't intend to wait for his denunciation. Mrs. Balfame told that to Polly too. You intend to say you did it. She said she wouldn't let you—oh, wouldn't she!—but you had told her that you would make up a plausible story and stick to it. And I know that you can't prove an alibi. Tell me,"—she came closer and her voice was almost threatening,—"do you really intend to take that crime on your shoulders if she is convicted."
"Yes."
"Oh! Oh! Men will be sentimental fools until—well, so long as they are born of fools and women. We are made all wrong!" She threw her muff on the ground and beat her hands together. Her eyes were blazing. There was a curious red glow in their olive depths. "Well, listen to me: You are not going to do this thing, although I really believe you'd like to do it as a sort of penance. She could not prevent such a monstrous sacrifice if she would, but I can. Just bear that in mind. If you come forward with any such insane proposition, I will make a fool of you before all the world. If Mrs. Balfame is acquitted, well and good; but if she is not, then I'll betray a confidence and run the risk of killing some one myself—but I'll get the truth. Just remember that, and keep off the witness-stand."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean that I know where to get the truth."
"You mean that Dr. Anna thinks Mrs. Balfame did it—that Mrs. Balfame confessed to her and that you can make the poor woman betray her friend while she is still too weak to resist. Well, you are all wrong. I know that Mrs. Balfame did not kill Balfame. If you want the reason for my knowledge,—and I know I can trust you,—Mrs. Balfame was out that night, and she did take a revolver and fire it. I found it in the house on the night following her arrest. It was a thirty-eight. There was one bullet missing. It was found in the tree. Balfame was killed by a forty-one. She did not go out to shoot Balfame, but because she thought she saw a burglar in the grove. Her revolver went off accidentally—and she is the best shot out at the Club. But you will readily understand my reasons for suppressing these facts."
Alys had turned her profile and was staring at a tree whose limbs creaked now and again with their weight of snow, sending down a powdery shower. Her thick short lashes were almost together before a gleaming line of olive.
"Oh! Who was her confederate?"