She started at the name, but the Medusa face remained unchanged.
"How much would your life have been worth to you? Could you have ever been a happy woman?"
"No, no, no," she wailed, "never again! I loved him! He was the only man I ever loved. I used him badly enough, God knows; but he was the only one, the only one. Poor old Tony was a good sort, and I made a fool of him and helped him to ruin himself, and I was sorry when he went off in a decline. Poor chap! He just chucked his life away. Too much fizz, and too much card-playing and late hours. Poor old Tony. He was only six and twenty when the doctors gave him over."
"But Rannock was the favourite," said Faunce.
"Yes, Dick was my one true love—the handsomest, the cleverest, the bravest, and always the gentleman—always the gentleman," she repeated, sobbing, "though I don't mean to say he was straight at cards. He had to get his money somehow, poor fellow."
"You loved him, and you lured him to his death. You told Bolisco where he was going, and that he was carrying his money with him, in bank-notes."
"My God, yes! I told him. I was always a blabbing fool."
"You wrote the letter that took him to the shambles, and you stood by and saw the blow struck."
"Great God! Do you think I knew what was coming? Do you think I'm a fiend from hell dressed up like a woman?" she cried, with wildest vehemence. "I wrote the letter—I was told to, and I had to obey. I asked him to meet me at Southampton. Jim said if he could see Rannock before he left England he could get a few pounds out of him for old sake's sake; and Jim was as near beggary as a sporting man with a few old friends left can be. I never thought he meant harm. Dick and he had been friendly in the old days in the Abbey Road, and it seemed likely enough that Dick would give him a helping hand. I didn't want to write that letter, mind you, but I was bullied into doing it. You don't know what Bolisco is."
"Yes, I do. I know he's a cold-blooded murderer, and that while you and Rannock were walking by the water, Bolisco crept up behind you and struck him on the back of his head with a life-preserver—a blow that fractured his skull."