“So far as you know, Dr. Marten,” I asked, “was I ever in love? Had I ever an admirer? Was I ever engaged to anyone?”
He shrugged his shoulders and smiled a sort of smile of relief.
“How should I know?” he answered. “Admirers?—yes, dozens of them; I was one myself. Lovers?—who can say? But I advise you not to push the inquiry further.”
I questioned him some minutes longer, but could get nothing more from him. Then I rose to go.
“Dr. Marten,” I said firmly, “if I remember all, and if it wrings my heart to remember, I tell you I will give up that man to justice all the same! I think I know myself well enough to know this much at least, that I never, never could stoop either to love or to screen a man who could commit such a foul and dastardly crime as this one.”
He took my hand fervently, raised it with warmth to his lips and kissed it twice over.
“My dear,” he said, with tears dropping down his gentle old cheeks, “this is a very great mystery—a terrible mystery. But I know you speak the truth. I can see you mean it. Therefore, all the more earnestly do I beg and beseech you, go away from Woodbury at once, and as long as you live think no more about it.”