Edith neither said any thing nor did any thing. She looked at him with dull indifference. She did not move. The thought came to her that this was merely another move in that great game of treachery and fraud to which she had been a victim; that here was the archtraitor, the instigator of all the lesser movements, who was coming to her in order to carry out some necessary part.
Wiggins sat down wearily upon one of the rude chairs of the scantily furnished room, and after a brief silence, looking at her sadly, began.
“I know,” said he, “how you misunderstand me, and how unwelcome I must be; but I had to come, so as to assure you that I hope to find this man who is missing. I—I hope to do so before the—the trial. I have been searching all along, but without success—thus far. I wish to assure you that I have found out a way by which you—will be saved. And if you believe me, I trust that you will—try—to—cherish more hope than you appear to be doing.”
He paused.
Edith said nothing at all. She was silent partly out of apathy, and partly from a determination to give him no satisfaction, for she felt that any words of hers, no matter how simple, might be distorted and used against her.
Wiggins looked at her with imploring earnestness, and seemed to wait for her to say something. But finding her silent, he went on:
“Will you let me ask you one question? and forgive me for asking it; but it is of some importance to—to me—and to you. It is this: Did—did you see him at all—that night?”
“I have been warned,” replied Edith, in a dull, cold tone, “to say nothing, and I intend to say nothing.”
Wiggins sighed.
“To say nothing,” said he, “is not always wise. I once knew a man who was charged with terrible crimes—crimes of which he was incapable. He was innocent, utterly. Not only innocent, indeed, but he had fallen under this suspicion, and had become the object of this charge, simply on account of his active efforts to save a guilty friend from ruin. His friend was the guilty one, and his friend was also his sister's husband; and this man had gone to try and save his friend, when he himself was arrested for that friend's crimes.”