Once in the dreary room, with the heavy door closed and locked, Lady Helena suddenly fell down on the stone floor before her niece and held up her hands.
"Inez," she said, "in Heaven's name hear me! You are shielding some one—that guilty man—you saw him do this deed. Speak out! Save yourself—let the guilty suffer. What is he, that you should perish for his sake? He was always evil and guilty—forget his blood flows in your veins—speak out and save yourself. Let him who is guilty suffer for his own crime!"
The soft September twilight was filling the room. One pale flash of sunset came slanting through the grated window and fell on Inez Catheron's face. She stood in the middle of the floor, her clasped hands hanging loosely before her, an indescribable expression on her face.
"Poor Juan," she said, wearily; "don't be too hard on him, Aunt Helena. We have none of us ever been too gentle with him in his wrong doing, and he wasn't really bad at heart then. If any letter should come from him to you, for me, say nothing about it—bring it here. I don't think he will be taken; he can double like a hare, and he is used to being hunted. I hope he is far away at sea before this. For the rest, I have nothing to say—nothing. I can live disgraced and die a felon if need be, but not ten thousand disgraceful deaths can make me speak one word more than I choose to utter."
Lady Helena's stifled sobbing filled the room. "Oh, my child! my child!" she cried; "what madness is this, and for one so unworthy!"
"But there will be no such tragical ending. I will be tried at the Assizes and acquitted. They can't bring me in guilty. Jane Pool's circumstancial evidence may sound very conclusive in the ears of Mr. Justice Smiley, but it won't bring conviction with a grand jury. You see it wasn't sufficient even for the coroner. The imprisonment here will be the worst, but you will lighten that. Then when it is all over, I will leave England and go back to Spain, to my mother's people. They will receive me gladly, I know. It is growing dark, Aunt Helena—pray don't linger here longer."
Lady Helena arose, her face set in a look of quiet, stubborn resolve.
"Take good care of poor Victor, and watch the baby well. He is the last of the Catherons now, you know. Don't let any one approach Victor but Mrs. Marsh, and warn her not to speak of my arrest—the shock might kill him. I wish—I wish I had treated her more kindly in the past. I feel as though I could never forgive myself now."
"You had better not talk so much, Inez," her aunt said, almost coldly. "You may be overheard. I don't pretend to understand you. You know best, whether he, for whom you are making this sacrifice, deserves it or not. Good-night, my poor child—I will see you early to-morrow."
Lady Helena, her lips set in that rigid line of resolve, her tears dried, rode back to Catheron Royals. The darkness had fallen by this time—fallen with black, fast-drifting clouds, and chill whistling winds. Two or three lights, here and there, gleamed along the lofty facade of the old mansion, now a house of mourning indeed. Beneath its roof a foul, dark murder had been done—beneath its roof its master lay ill unto death. And for the guilty wretch who had wrought this ruin, Inez Catheron was to suffer imprisonment, suspicion, and life-long disgrace. The curse that the towns-people invoked on Juan Catheron, Lady Helena had it in her heart to echo.