If her eyes could have pierced the bolted door a few feet away! If she could have seen that listening face behind it, as her clear tones fell, grow instinct with recognition, amazement, and evil suspicion—a look that her last word swept into a sickly gray terror! If she could have heard the groan from the wretched man beyond!
"Whose murder?"
"Doctor Moreau's."
In all Harry Sanderson's life was to be never such a moment of revealment. He knew that she meant himself. The murderer of Doctor Moreau—Hugh's one-time crony and loose associate, who had shared in the plunder of the forged draft, and had then abandoned his cat's-paw to discovery! The man Hugh had promised to "pay off for it some time!" Had Moreau also made this his stamping-ground? A swift memory swept him of Hugh's hang-dog look, his nervous dread when he had begged in the chapel study for money with which to leave the country. It did not need the smothered gasp from behind the bolted door to point the way to the swift conclusion Harry's mind was racing to. A dull flush spread to his forehead.
Jessica waited with caught breath, searching his countenance. It was told now, but he must know that she had not credited it—that "for better, for worse," she must believe in him now. "I knew, oh, I knew!" she cried. "You need not tell me!"
The hell of two passions that were struggling within him—a savage exultation and a submerging wave of pity for her utter ignorance, her blind faith, for the painful dénouement that was rushing upon her—died, and left him cold and still. "No," he said gravely, "I am not the man they want. It has all come back to me—the past that I had lost. Such a crime has no part in it."
At another time the abrupt news of this retrieval must have affected her strangely, for she had wondered much concerning the return of that memory that held alike their early love and his own tragedy and shame. Now, however, a greater contingency absorbed her. He must go, and without delay. Her lips were opened to speak when he closed the door behind him and stepped quickly down toward her. At all odds, he was thinking, she must not see the man in that inner room! If she remained he could not guess what shock might result.
"Jessica," he said, "you have tried to save me from danger to-night. I need a greater service of you now; it is to ask no questions, but to go at once. I can not explain why, but you must not stay here a moment."
"Oh," she cried bitterly, "you don't intend to leave! You choose to face it, and you want to spare me. If you really want to spare me, you will go! Why, you would have no chance where they have hated you so. Prendergast was killed robbing the sluice to-night, and he lied—lied—lied! He swore you did it, and they will believe it!"
He put back her beseeching hands. How could he explain? Only to get her away—to gain time—to think!