“It’s worse than that! It’s her mind—it has gone, and her body is following. She hasn’t known me for days. She lies there dying.”
I was shocked, but I must confess I did not feel like a murderer. Mrs. Kingsley had been ill when we went away—she had so declared in my hearing.
“Miss Kingsley,” I put in, “I’m sorry, but your father and I—”
Her tears ceased and she turned on me in a fury. I knew something about the Kingsley disposition, but I did not know before that she had so much of it in her.
“Sorry! You sorry? I know about you, you miserable low-lived wretch! I have been hunting for my father. Do you think I would look down on my dying mother and not spend every cent I had in trying to find where you had taken him? My detectives have been on that trail you left in the city!”
Able detectives! On the cold and easy trail instead of nosing on the warm one!
“But please listen to me—”
“To more of your lies? No! I know you for what you are—hiding from the police in the city—coming back here to finish the ruin of my innocent father after your friends had been, sent here by you to rob him. You don’t dare to deny what you have been in the city! Your face convicts you!” >
I was perfectly conscious that I was not presenting any lamb-like picture of innocence. She certainly had me on the run when she burst out with that exposure of my city record. But I did not propose to lie down and stick up my feet like a calf ticketed for the butcher.
“Miss Kingsley,” I said, slapping the packet of money across my palm—and that was a poor tool to use for emphasis after she had heard my talk to her father, “you must listen—”