"How will you account for your presence?" she interrupted.
"By the truth—that I came to call, entered the house by the piazza and the living-room just as Lorraine delivered the fatal blow, Lorraine's explanation of the deed, and his own sudden death."
Slowly she shook her head.
"Do you think the police will believe it?" she asked.
"Certainly—why should they doubt it?" he answered.
"Do you think the public will believe it?"
"Of course!—And what have the public to do with it anyway?"
"They might ask, both the police and the public—and the police will have to ask if the public demands to know—what you had to do with the killing? Your friendship to me in the past; your—devotion in the present; my—love, they will say, for you; the coincidence of Lorraine's and Amherst's visits, coupled with your own, and that you survive while they died—all, all will make most startling inferences, don't you think, Montague?"
"Not in the least, dear!" he smiled, though he knew she spoke the truth—at least so far as the public was concerned. To it there would always be something unexplained about the tragedy; something that either he or Stephanie could have made plain—and would not. "My reputation and standing in the community, and the reputation of my family before me, is sufficient answer to such inferences," he added.
Again she shook her head.