But Monroe had gone back to his chair, where he sat looking at her thoughtfully, and looking at Margeret, also, who had remained near the door, and gave no sign of having heard their words––had she?
“No, Madame Caron,” he said, quietly, “if there is any evidence in my favor you can communicate to Colonel McVeigh, I shall be your debtor, but the picture is altogether a personal affair of my own. I will, if I can, prevent it from being used in this case at all, out of consideration for the lady whom I mentioned before.”
CHAPTER XXX.
Kenneth McVeigh walked the floor of his own room, with the bitterest thoughts of his life for company. Loyal gentleman that he was, he was appalled at the turn affairs had taken. It had cost him a struggle to give up faith in the man he had known and liked––but all that was as nothing compared to the struggle in which his own love fought against him.
In that room where death apparently stood on the threshold, and the dying man had followed him about the room with most terrible, appealing eyes, he had heard but few of the words spoken––all his heart and brain were afire with the scene he had just left; that, and the others preceding it! Every word or glance he had noticed between Monroe and the woman he loved returned to him! Trifles light as air before, now overwhelmed him with horrible suggestions; and her pleading for him that morning––all the little artifices, the pretended lightness with which she asked a first favor on her wedding morning––their wedding morning! for whatever she was or was not, she was, at least, his wife!
That fact must be taken into consideration, he could not set it aside; her disgrace meant his disgrace––God! was that why she had consented to the hurried marriage?––to shield herself under his name, and to influence his favor for her lover?
The spirit of murder leaped in his heart as he thought of 384 it! He heard Gertrude send to the library for Margeret, and he sent word to Masterson he was detained and would continue the investigation later. When Pluto returned, after delivering the message, he inquired if Madame Caron was yet in the library, and Pluto informed him Madame Caron had gone to her room some time ago; no one was in the library now, the gentleman had gone back to the cottage.
He meant to see her alone before speaking again with Monroe, to know the worst, whatever it was, and then––