“You look as innocent as a flower,” he said painfully. “Perhaps this will move you.”
He drew me close to Robbie. He lifted one of the little hands and laid it, still warm, in mine. The small fingers were clenched into a fist, and about two of them was wrapped a strand of red-gold hair.
I fell down at Paul Dabney's feet.
The consciousness of his grip on my wrist, which kept me from measuring my length on the floor, stayed with me through a strange, short journey into forgetfulness.
“Ah!” said Paul Dabney, as I came back and raised my head; “I thought that would cut the ground from under you.”
He quietly untwisted the hairs from the child's clutch, and, still keeping his hold of me, he put the lock into his pocket-book and replaced it in an inner pocket.
“Stand up!” he said.
I obeyed. The blood was beginning to return to my brain, and with it an intolerable sense of outrage. I returned him look for look.
“If I am unfortunate enough to walk in my sleep,” I said quiveringly, “and if, through this misfortune, I have been so terribly unhappy as to cause the death of this poor delicate child, is that any reason, Paul Dabney, that you should hold me by the wrist and threaten me and treat me like a murderess?”
I was standing at my full height, and my eyes were fixed on his. To my inexpressible relief, the expression of his face changed. His eyes faltered from their implacable judgment, his lips relaxed, his fingers slowly slipped from my wrist. I caught his arm in both my hands.