I hesitated, really not knowing what to say.
"But I did not murder him. The shot from my gun killed him, but not intentionally. As Heaven, soon to be my judge, hears me, I tell you the truth. Philip King had angered me very much. As I saw him in the distance smoking a cigar, his back against the tree's trunk, I pointed my gun at him and put my finger on the trigger, saying, 'How I should like to put a shot into you!' Without meaning it—without meaning it, the gun went off; Anne: my elbow caught against the branch of a tree, and it went off and shot him. I had rather—yes, even then—that it had shot myself."
"But why did you not come forward and say so, Mr. Heneage?"
"Because the fact paralysed me, making me both a fool and a coward, and the moment for avowals went by, passed for ever. I would have give my own life to undo my work and restore that of Philip King. It was too late. All was too late. So I have lived on as I best could, hiding myself from the law, an exile from my country, my wife a stranger; regarded by the world as a murderer, liable to be called upon at any moment to expiate it, and with a man's death upon my soul. Over and over again would I have given myself up, but for the disgrace it would bring to my family."
"I thought it might be an accident, Mr. Heneage—have always thought it," I said, with a sigh of relief.
"Thank God, yes! But the wicked wish had been there, though uttered in reckless sport. Oh, child, don't you see how glad I shall be to go? Christ has washed away sins as red as mine. Not of my sins, comparatively speaking, has the care lain heavily upon me night and day; but of another's."
Did he mean Selina's? "Of whose, sir?"
"Philip King's. I gave him no time to pray for them. There's a verse in the Bible, Anne, that has brought me comfort at times," he whispered, with feverish eagerness, gazing at me with his earnest, yearning eyes. "When the disciples asked of the Redeemer who then can be saved, there came in answer the loving words, 'With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.'"
He might not have said more; I don't know; but Hill came in to announce Dr. Laken. Her face of astonishment when she saw me sitting there was ludicrous to behold. George Heneage wrung my hand as I left him.
"You see, Hill, they ask me in here of themselves," I could not help saying, in a sort of triumph, as she held the green-baize door open for me.