“Is it your duty?” asked Crossley.
“Is it my duty?” repeated the young lady; “need you ask? I am under a vow.”
The detective gave Nance a long and earnest gaze. He had one of those faces extremely difficult to read. It was smooth in outline, commonplace in expression; it was a contented, slightly self-satisfied face; the eyes were well open and of a serene tone of blue; the mouth was hidden by a thick short moustache. Crossley was the sort of man who would pass anywhere without exciting the least attention. He had the sort of physiognomy which thousands of other people possess. No one to look at him would suppose for a moment that he was one of the shrewdest detectives of his day—a man practically at the head of his profession—keen to read motives, capable of looking down into the hearts of many apparently inexplicable mysteries.
While he gave Nance one of his slow and apparently indifferent glances, he was really looking into her troubled heart.
“You are a happy young married lady now,” he said after a pause.
“Yes, yes, I am very happy,” she said, clasping her hands.
“You are much attached to your good husband, madam?”
“Need you ask?” Her eyes filled slowly with tears.
“Then for Heaven’s sake, Mrs. Rowton,” said the detective, speaking in an altogether new voice for him, “give this matter up, let it drop. Nay, hear me out”—he raised his hand to interrupt a flow of words which were rushing to Nancy’s lips—“I am speaking against myself and against my own interests when I so advise you; but I am not without heart, madam, and I have seen in the past how sad your life was and how you suffered. It is my profession to hunt down criminals—to scent crime to its source. In this case let me do what is contrary to my profession—let me leave the curtain unlifted. Mrs. Rowton, may I persuade you to leave justice and revenge in this special case to Heaven?”
“I cannot,” said Nance. “I am amazed to hear you speak in that tone—you, of all people. I cannot possibly do it. What do you mean? What can you mean?”