"The one who is guilty of this diabolical deed must be held accountable for it," said the doctor, facing her sternly. "A just punishment must and shall be meted out to the wicked party. If you say that you will not admit the truth, then I will turn the affair over to Mr. Garner, here and now!"
What would they do with Jack? In imagination she saw him in a prison cell, perhaps doomed to drag out all the after years of his life there, and the thought seemed to drive her to madness.
"I will take it upon myself, and Jack shall go free," she said to herself—"yes blameless and free."
Slowly the doctor stepped around to Jack's side.
"What have you to say in this matter, Mr. Garner?" he said.
"Let me answer instead of him," Dorothy panted, hoarsely. "He knows nothing about it. Oh, hear me!—listen to me, I pray you! It is I—I whom you must hold guilty. Do with me as you will!"
Both of the doctors nodded toward each other. A groan broke from Garner's lips—this acknowledgement was so terrible for him to hear from this strange woman's lips.
"Who are you, and what was your motive for this horrible crime?" asked the doctor, sternly. "You must make a clean breast of why you attempted to poison Miss Staples, here and now."
There was one person in that room who listened to Dorothy's most extraordinary confession, white with terror, and that was—Nadine Holt.
She knew full well that the stranger was entirely guiltless; then why under heaven had she placed herself in such a horrible position?