"It's nothing of that sort, Aunt Fanny. It is this—I don't mind telling you now, now that you have promised not to betray me. Aunt Fanny, I was out last night—I saw the murder committed."
Mrs. Armitage suppressed a sharp scream.
"Heaven preserve us!" she said, in a choking voice. "Were you not in bed, you wicked girl?"
"No, I was out. I had quarrelled with Mr. Frere in the parlor, and I thought I'd follow him and make it up. I went straight on to the Plain—I saw him running. I hid behind a furze bush and I saw the quarrel, and I heard the words—I saw the awful struggle, and I heard the blows. I heard the fall, too—and I saw the man who had killed Mr. Frere run away."
"I wonder you never told all this to-day, Hetty Armitage. Well, I'm sorry for that poor Mr. Everett. Oh, dear, what will not our passions lead us to; to think that two young gentlemen should come to this respectable house, and that it should be the case of Cain and Abel over again—one rising up and slaying the other."
Hetty, who had been kneeling all this time, now rose. Her face was ghastly—her words came out in strange pauses.
"It wasn't Mr. Everett," she said.
"Good Heavens! Hetty," exclaimed her aunt, springing also to her feet, and catching the girl's two hands within her own—"It wasn't Mr. Everett!—what in the world do you mean?"
"What I say, Aunt Fanny—the man who killed Mr. Frere was Mr. Awdrey. Our Mr. Awdrey, Aunt Fanny, and I could die for him—and no one must ever know—and I saw him this evening, and—and he has forgotten all about it. He doesn't know a bit about it—not a bit. Oh, Aunt Fanny, I shall go quite mad, if you don't promise to help me to keep my secret."