No answer but a strangled muttering, a head that moved as if in pain. The eyes watching him saw that the sleeper was tortured.
"But this once," she said to herself, "I must ask—I will know."
She bent over, without touching him, and put her lips down close to his ear. "Swear to tell me the truth," she said in her distinct, arresting whisper.
Long she waited, watching lips that writhed before speaking, eyes that seemed to ache to open and were sealed by an invisible hand. At length in the low, stumbling, unwilling voice came the response—"I swear."
"Did—she—kill—herself?"
"No!"
"Oh, love! Are you certain? Will you swear it?"
"I swear it," said the muffled voice.
"Why are you so sure? Why? Oh, tell me! Listen: she said she died by her own hand."
"A lie. It is a lie. I killed her."