"Yes," said Pateley. "The man who did it."
Rachel started. Of course, yes—if her husband had not done it some one else had, they were shifting the horrible burden on to another. But that other deserved it, since he was the guilty man.
"Yes," she said lower, "of course I know there is some one else!—it is very terrible—but—but—it's right, isn't it, that the man who has done it should be accused and not one who is innocent?"
"Yes," said Pateley, "it is right."
"You must tell me," she said, "you must!—you must tell me everything now, as I have told you. Is it some one to whom it will matter very much?"
Pateley waited.
"No," he said at length, "it won't matter to him."
Rachel looked at him, not understanding.
He went on, "Nothing will ever matter to him again. He is dead."
"Dead, is he?" said Rachel, but even in the horror-struck tone there rang an accent of glad relief. "Then it can't matter to him. And it is right, after all, that people should know what he did. It is right, it is justice, isn't it?" she repeated, as though trying to reassure herself, "not only because of Frank?"