'It could,' she cried out wildly. 'It could. Oh, Jim — how can you forgive me? She was so good to me. And I believed him. I believed what he said of her. I should have known she didn't do it. I couldn't have saved my mother. But I could have saved her.' She looked up at me wildly. 'Say you forgive me, Jim. Say you forgive me. I couldn't have known, could I?'
'Of course not,' I said, stroking her hair. The poor kid was beside herself.
'Oh God!' she breathed. 'It's so horrible. All that year. She was in that room a year. And she believed she'd done it. She believed she was mad. Oh, if I'd only known,' she sobbed. 'It's my fault. I shouldn't have believed it of her. If I hadn't believed it, then she wouldn't have.'
'Then he'd have killed her a different way,' I said gently. 'Don't worry, Kitty. It wasn't your fault.'
She clutched at my hand and held it tight against her wet cheek. 'She used to tell me fairy stories when I was a little girl with pigtails,' she said in a stifled voice. 'She loved me. I should have known. Her face looking at me through the hatch… Oh, God!'
The door opened and Captain Manack came in. 'The old man's not in his room,' he said. He came up and caught hold of Kitty. 'Did you hear my father come out?'
She gulped and then nodded.
'Which way did he go — upstairs?'
She shook her head. 'He went out the front door,' she said slowly.
He let her go then and turned to me. 'He's down the mine. You come down with us.' He turned quickly and went out through the scullery. I heard him shouting for Friar and Slim.