The woman was spurred up to answer. She met his voice with one precisely in the same key; it was a voice a succession of unfortunate lady's-maids knew very well.
"Absolutely nothing," she said; "where as you—your guilt, my friend, is clear, transparently clear."
She nodded two or three times to emphasise her assertion, and by this time her composure had returned to her and she was ready for anything.
Collingwood, who had been watching her with the most intense scrutiny, had followed with perfect clearness the changes in her voice and attitude. He now knew where he was. The bluff was over, he was about to play his hand.
More particularly than anything else his mind, intensely alert and active at this supreme moment, noticed that Alice Attwill had wheeled round upon her chair and seemed in a most marked way to be interposing herself between him and the writing-table.
It was as though some precious possession lay there of which she feared she would be robbed.
Feeling certain now of the woman's guilt, he said: "Perhaps you are also going to suggest that I wrote that dastardly letter?"
Lady Attwill sneered. "One of us obviously must have written it," she said, "and your motive—well, it is pretty clear, isn't it?"
"And yours," he said—"and isn't yours clear also?"
"Do you think so?" she asked, with a toss of her head.