“I forget IT—the red horror!”
“You meant just now to drown yourself?”
“No! If I had meant it I would have done it.... Hubert, for my children's sake, I WILL not commit suicide!”
“Then listen!” I cried. I told him in a few words of his sister's scheme—Sebastian's defence—the plausibility of the explanation—the whole long story. He gazed at me moodily. Yet it was not Hugo!
“No, no,” he said, shortly; and as he spoke it was HE. “I have done it; I have killed her; I will not owe my life to a falsehood.”
“Not for the children's sake?”
He dashed his hand down impatiently. “I have a better way for the children. I will save them still.... Hubert, you are not afraid to speak to a murderer?”
“Dear Hugo—I know all; and to know all is to forgive all.”
He grasped my hand once more. “Know ALL!” he cried, with a despairing gesture. “Oh, no; no one knows ALL but myself; not even the children. But the children know much; THEY will forgive me. Lina knows something; SHE will forgive me. You know a little; YOU forgive me. The world can never know. It will brand my darlings as a murderer's children.”
“It was the act of a minute,” I interposed. “And—though she is dead, poor lady, and one must speak no ill of her—we can at least gather dimly, for your children's sake, how deep was the provocation.”