“Good heavens, Norman! I never saw the man in my life, either alive or dead. Do they think I murdered him?”
“Certainly not, Camille. Pray do not get so excited. Then you did not meet Robert Lacy anywhere in the grounds?”
“No, I did not. I only stayed out a few minutes. I came in and went to reading. You know I told you, Norman, how interested I was in my book last night.”
“Yes, I remember,” he said, in a strained voice.
She noticed it with a throb of fear at her heart. Why did he look at her so strangely?
“I suppose I need not really go. You can tell them that I never saw the man, can’t you, dear?” she pleaded, laying an entreating hand on his coat-sleeve; but he answered almost impatiently:
“I’m afraid you must come with me, Camille, or they will send an officer of the law for you. I promised I would bring you. You need not feel so nervous over it. They will only ask you a few questions. Of course, no one has any thought that you harmed the man. They are only trying to find out who saw him last in life.”
With bitter reluctance she went with him, trying to steel her nerves to the cruel ordeal.
Were they going to make her look upon the face of the dead man and swear that he was unknown to her—that she had never seen him before? Must she add perjury to the list of her sins?
When it was all over she wondered at the calmness with which she had gone through it all. How had she ever done it. How had she borne so unflinchingly the keen questions, the suspicious looks, and beaten down all with that air of complete innocence? If for a moment her heart had trembled within her on looking at the dead and ghastly face of the man she had slain, there was no one to know. She took credit to herself afterward for the hardihood with which she had denied everything, making so strong an impression on the coroner’s jury that, after a very brief deliberation, they brought in a verdict that Robert Lacy had compassed his own death, first by stabbing with a knife, which Lord Stuart affirmed he habitually carried on his person, and had made sure of his work by casting himself into the river. Suicide, not a doubt of it.