Mrs. Cameron put her arms round her. She comforted her with tender little murmurings. Deirdre raised her head, and put her off from her, gazing into her face with drenched eyes.
"I understand ever so much better now," she said. And a moment later: "Have I been mad with fright? What'll I do? My head aches so, I scarcely know what I am saying. I can't think. What shall I do? What is going to happen to me?"
"There's no jury in the country that would not acquit you," Mrs. Cameron said. "McNab was well known. Oh, people were afraid of him, but they will speak now. You're young and beautiful, and if your story is not a justification—there's no God watching over the world."
"But what will Davey think of me?" Deirdre cried. "I'm afraid to see him—I wanted to, when I came here—but I'm afraid now. I thought it would be to say good-bye. They'll be coming for me soon, too. Oh, I'll go now, Mrs. Cameron. If Davey looked at my hands, and knew what they had done—"
Conflicting thoughts, whipping each other, were driving her like a leaf, first one way and then the other.
There was a heavy step on the threshold. Davey's figure loomed against the doorway.
Coming in from the light, it was a few minutes before his eyes accustomed to the gloom, saw that there was someone with his mother.
He stared at Deirdre as though they were ghosts who were meeting after death, beyond the world. She shrank from the stare of his eyes, putting up her arms to hide her face, with a little pitiful cry. She moved along the wall towards the door as if to go out and escape them.
"Davey! Davey! Don't let her go," Mrs. Cameron cried. Although his eyes followed her, and he seemed to guess her intention, he did not stir.
"Davey," Mrs. Cameron cried, a pang in her heart like the blade of a knife. "She has killed McNab, and is going to her death because of it."