“If she had loved Henry, how could she, under any impulse of jealousy, have injured him? She is terrible to me in any view of the case.”
“I do not know that she did injure him, or cause him to be injured. Circumstances are against her. But I am far from believing her the guilty person. Yet I am exceedingly anxious to have a quiet interview with her. I must see her and talk with her alone. She is frightened now, and defiant. I shall soothe her—magnetize her will, as it were—and draw from her the truth. Every atom of knowledge which she has, in any way connected with Henry Moreland, I shall draw from her, and consolidate into one mass, to be used for or against her. If you have the reliance upon my judgment which I flatter myself you have, Richard, you will not object to my seeing Miss Sullivan alone, and deciding, upon that interview, whether there are causes for her arrest, as a party to the murder.”
“I shall not object. It is your privilege to see her alone; and I have the utmost confidence in you. I suppose Mr. Argyll and Henry’s father would be the proper persons to decide upon the arrest and prosecution.”
“Of course. And if, after I have talked with her, I can elicit no facts to warrant her being put on trial for her life, I shall not give her her liberty until I have consulted both families, laying all my evidence before them. They will be loth to begin a prosecution which they can not sustain, even if they have an impression of guilt. By the way, Redfield, these impressions are curious things! Supposing I should tell you there are persons who, without one particle of proof of any kind, have an impression that you are the guilty man.”
I arose from the sofa, looking at him, not knowing whether or not to knock him down.
“Don’t ‘slay me with a look’,” he said, laughing quietly. “I don’t say that I have any such inner revelation. And I did not say this, either, to hurt your feelings. I did it to save them. For, if I mistake not, the same person who confided his impressions to me, has recently been gradually confiding them to others. The very thought, the very possibility, once entertained, or half-entertained and driven away again, as an unwelcome guest, still has its injurious influence. You are standing upon an earthquake, Richard—you may be swallowed up any instant.”
“I?”
“Yes. I have detected the premonitory rumblings. I have said this only to warn you, that you may be ready for self-defense.”
“I scorn to defend myself! Defend myself, forsooth! against what? Who has dared to insinuate that thought against me which you have allowed yourself to echo? But I need not ask—it is my natural foe, James Argyll. He hates me as the rattlesnake hates the black-ash tree!”
“Well, the dislike is mutual. Will you deny that you, too, have had a thought—mind, I say a mere, floating thought—that he may have instigated the deed?”