"Hush!" he said, in a hoarse whisper; "I suspect no one. Be silent concerning what has passed. Leave me now, I wish to lie down. When those people return from searching the island, come and let me know the result. I do not wish to be disturbed before."
Wondering what possible meaning could be couched beneath his mysterious words, Mrs. Courtney left the room.
Edgar Courtney sat down, and with knitted brows and compressed lips fell into deep thought. Now and then his white face would blanch to a more ghastly hue still, and his muscles would twitch convulsively; and, again, an expression of demoniacal joy and triumph would light up his countenance, to be clouded a moment after, by doubt and fear, while his customary midnight scowl grew darker and darker. At last, a look of desperate resolution usurped every other expression, and he hissed through his clenched teeth:
"I will do it! I will do it! Anything, even this, sooner than the fate that may be mine. It can easily be proved. A slighter chain of circumstantial evidence has been found, before now, strong enough to hang——"
He paused suddenly, and cast a terrified glance around, as if fearful the very walls might hear his diabolical plot. Or, perhaps, the word suggested what might one day be his own destiny.
He arose and paced excitedly up and down the room, so deeply absorbed in thought, that he heeded not the flight of time, until the sudden opening of the door, and the entrance of his wife startled him from his reverie.
"Well," he said, seating himself, and trying to hide his anxiety under a show of composure.
"Oh, they have searched every corner of the island so carefully, that if a pin had been lost, it must have been found; but it is all in vain. They cannot obtain the slightest clew to the discovery of the murderer or his victim. All that has been found is a knife, deeply stained with blood, which places the fact that she has been murdered, beyond the possibility of a doubt. The murderer, in his flight, probably dropped it unawares," said Laura.
Courtney started in alarm at the news; but a moment's reflection convinced him, that—as the weapon bore neither name nor initials, and had never been seen with him—there was nothing to be feared from the discovery.
"And what do they mean to do now?" he asked.