She lifted her head suddenly.
“Arrest!” she exclaimed; “why should you arrest him?”
Stanhope fixed his eyes upon her face; then sinking his voice still lower, he said:
“Something had occurred before we came upon the scene; what that something was, you probably know. What we found in that room, after your flitting, was Alan Warburton, standing against the door with a table before him as a breast-work, in his hand a blood-stained bar of iron, and almost at his feet, a dead body.”
“What!”
“It was the body of a dead rag-picker. Before you left that room, a fatal blow was struck.”
“Yes—I—I don’t know—I can’t tell—it was all confused.”
She sank back in her chair, her face fairly livid, her eyes looking unutterable horror.
“Some one had committed a murder,” went on Stanhope, keeping his eyes fixed upon her pallid face; “and the instrument that dealt the blow was in your brother-in-law’s hand. To arrest him would have been to compromise you, and I had promised you safety and protection.”
She bent forward, looking eagerly into his face.