"Where is my husband?" she gasped out. "Is he still alive?"
"I am not your husband's keeper, madam."
"But you are his murderer!" She held out her arm, and pointed at him with a terrible significance. There was something clasped in her trembling fingers which he could not discern.
"You speak in riddles, madam; and it seems to me your humor is somewhat grim."
"I ask you once more, is my husband dead, and have I come too late?"
"I have not seen him for some days; I left him alive and well. What makes you think him otherwise, or that I have harmed him?"
"This"—she advanced toward him, keeping her eyes steadily fixed upon his own—"this was found among your things after you left my house!"
It was a ticket-of-leave—the one that had been given to Balfour on his discharge from Lingmoor. It seemed impossible that Richard's colorless face could have become still whiter, but it did so.
"Yes, that is mine," said he. "It was an imprudence in me to leave such a token among curious people. You took an interest in my effects, it seems."
"It was poor Mrs. Basil who found it, and who gave it to me." Her voice was calm, and even cold; but the phrase "poor Mrs. Basil" alarmed him.