“Oh, for sweet pity’s sake do not betray me! He—he—was killed when the sleigh upset—and I—I—did not know what to do! I thought I would leave him there. How could I drive home with a dead man!” shudderingly.
“What was his name?”
“I will not tell you!” wildly.
“Miss Ellyson, there is blood on your hands and your dress. Is it possible you have done murder?” Carey Doyle demanded, with sudden sternness.
“No, no, it was an accident! He—he—would have mistreated me, and I—I—defended myself with the hairpin! It wounded him, and then the fall killed him! I—I—oh, sir, I cannot bear the sensation of discovery. I will make you rich if you will keep this terrible secret!” pleaded Cora, kneeling down abjectly in the snow before the exultant wretch glorying in the discovery he had made.
Rather than put herself in the power of this bad man Cora had better have put the dead man back into the sleigh and driven back to the city with a full confession of her sin. Surely no jury would have convicted her of murder when they heard how she had been goaded by cruel wrong into a terrible deed. They would all agree that she had been driven temporarily insane by her fear and suffering.
But her poor brain was too distraught to think clearly. A horrible fear possessed her lest the deed become known, and she should fall into the hands of the law.
She knelt down in the cold snow with the biting wind cutting her white face and blowing her dark, loosened hair about her, her small hands clasped, pleading, praying:
“Oh, sir, do not betray me! I could not bear detection! What will you take to keep my wretched secret?”
His eyes gleamed with cupidity as he answered: