“How will she bear it?” thought the detective to himself. “I wish I had never gone into this business. Who would have thought that it would have come out as it has? Poor young lady, I cannot bear to meet her eyes.”
“You have prepared me for something very dreadful,” said Nance; “but please understand it is not the news itself, but the suspense which is really killing me. Speak! tell me what you have discovered.”
“I have very grave tidings, Mrs. Rowton,” said the man. “It is impossible for me to tell them you in half a dozen words. You have got to listen to a certain story. Believe me, I will not keep you in suspense a minute longer than I can help.”
“Begin, then,” said Nance.
A chair was standing near. She caught the back of it with one trembling hand, and stood very upright, facing the detective, who placed himself on the hearth-rug with his back to the fire.
“I believe,” said Crossley, in a low but very firm voice, “that I have at last found the man who murdered your brother.”
“I thought as much,” said Nance. She spoke faintly.
“His name?” she said then after a pause.
“I will come to the name in a few minutes, madam. I have, I believe, found the man. You remember when I visited you at the Heights about two months ago that I then spoke of certain suspicions?”
“You did. Pardon me, why must we go into that? Can you not put me out of suspense at once?”