"Yes, yes, please go on!" Priscilla was breathless.
"Well, he couldn't sweep it aside; so he committed—murder."
"Oh! Mr. Boswell!"
The shuddering cry drew Boswell to the present. He remembered that his listener knew Farwell only as a friend and gentle comrade. Her shock was natural.
"You—you never guessed? Why do you think he, that brilliant fellow, stayed hidden like a dead thing all these years?"—there was a quiver in Boswell's voice—"hidden so deep that—not even I dared to go to him for fear I would be followed and he again trapped! Oh! 'twas an ugly thing he did; but he was driven to insanity—even his judges believed that—at the last; but his victim was too big a man to go unavenged, so they hunted Farwell down, caught him in a trap, and tried to finish him, but he got away and they thought him—dead."
"Yes, yes," moaned Priscilla, "yes, I know. And the woman—did her heart break?"
At this Boswell leaned forward, and, in the fire's glow, Priscilla saw his face grow cruel and hard.
"Her heart break? No, she went promptly to the devil, once she was sure she had lost Farwell and his money. Down to the last hope she made him believe in her. How she acted! But when he was reported dead, well!"—and Boswell gave a harsh laugh—"her heart did not break!"
A sound brought Boswell back to the dim room.
"You are—crying?" he said slowly; "crying for him?"