She would not—she could not! so she told herself. 299 Better—better far be suspected of a murder—live all her life under the blame of it for him—than to tell him of a past that was dead to her now, a past she hated, and from which she had determined to bar herself as far as silence could build the wall. And to tell him—him—she could not.
But even as she sat, with her burning face in her hands, quick, heavy steps came to the door, halted, and looking up she found Dan before her.
“Oh! you should not,” she whispered, hurriedly. “Why did you come back? They do not suspect; they think I did it—and so—”
“What does this all mean?—what do you mean?” he asked. “Can’t you speak?”
It seemed she could not find any more words, she stared at him so helplessly.
“Max, come here!” he called, to hasten steps already approaching. “Come, all of you; I had only a moment to listen to the captain when he caught up with me. But he told me she is suspected of murder—that a ring she wore last night helped the suspicion on. I didn’t wait to hear any more, for I gave the little girl that snake ring—gave it to her weeks ago. I bought it from a miner, and he told me he got it from an Indian near Karlo. Now are you ready to suspect me, too, because I had it first?”
“The ring wasn’t just the most important bit of circumstantial evidence, Mr. Overton,” answered the man named Saunders; “and we are all mighty glad you’ve got here. It was in her room the man was found, and a knife she borrowed from you was what killed him; and of where she was just about the time the thing happened she won’t say anything.” 300
His face paled slightly as he looked at her and heard the brief summing up of the case.
“My knife?” he said, blankly.
“Yes, sir. When some one said it was your knife, she spoke up and said it was, but that you had not had it since noon, for she borrowed it then to cut a stick; but beyond that she don’t tell a thing.”