In a moment a terrible sinking came over me from head to foot. I trembled like an aspen-leaf. Could this, then, be the meaning of Dr. Marten’s warning, that I should let sleeping dogs lie, lest I should be compelled to punish someone whom I loved most dearly? Had Fate been so cruel to me, that I had learned to cling most in my Second State to the very criminal whose act had blotted out my First? Had I grown to treat like a mother my father’s murderer?
Aunt Emma’s hand! Aunt Emma’s hand! That was Aunt Emma’s hand, every touch and every line of it. But no! where were the marks, those well-known marks on the palm? I took up the big magnifying-glass with which I had often scanned that photograph close before. Not a sign or a trace of them. I shut my eyes, and called up again the mental Picture of the murder. I looked hard at the phantom-hand in it, that floated like a vision, all distinct before my mind’s eye. It was flat and smooth and white. Not a scar—not a sign on it. I turned round to Jane, that too natural detective.
“No, no!” I cried hastily, with a quick tone of triumph. “Aunt Emma’s hand is marked on the palm with great gashes and cuts. This one’s smooth as smooth can be. And so’s the one I can see in the Picture within me!”
Jane drew back with a startled air, and opened her mouth, all agog, to let in a deep breath.
“The wall!” she said slowly. “The bottle-glass, don’t you know! The blood on the top! Whoever did it, climbed over and tore his hands. Or HER hands, if it was a woman! That would account for the gashes.”
This was more than I could endure. The coincidence was too crushing. I bent down my head on my arms and cried silently, bitterly. I hated Jane in my heart for even suggesting it. Yet I couldn’t deny to myself for a moment the strength and suggestiveness of her half-spoken argument.
Not that for a second I believed it true. I could never believe it. Aunt Emma, so gentle, so kindly, so sweet: incapable of hurting any living thing: the tenderest old lady that breathed upon earth: and my own mother’s sister, whom I loved as I never before loved anyone! Aunt Emma the murderess! The bare idea was preposterous! I couldn’t entertain it. My whole nature revolted from it.
And indeed, how very slight, after all, was the mere scrap of evidence on which Jane ventured to suggest so terrible a charge! A man—in man’s clothes—fairly tall and slim, and apparently dark-haired, but stooping so much that he looked almost hump-backed: how different from Aunt Emma, with her womanly figure, and her upright gait, and her sweet old white head! Why, it was clearly ridiculous.
And yet, the fact remained that as Jane pointed to the Picture and asked, “Whose hand is that?” the answer came up all spontaneously to my lips, without hesitation, “Aunt Emma’s!”
I sat there long in my misery, thinking it over to myself. I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t go and confide to Aunt Emma’s ear this new and horrible doubt,—which was no doubt after all, for I KNEW it was impossible. I hated Jane for suggesting it; I hated her for telling me. Yet I couldn’t be left alone. I was far too terrified.