"At any rate, you said she confessed to having done it," sharply spoke Mr. Greatorex, vexed with everybody.
"Confound the foolish women! what would the best of 'em not confess to, to screen a sweetheart? Alletha Rye has been thinking Winter guilty all this while, and when it came to close quarters and there seemed a fear that he'd be taken up for it, she said what she did to save him. I see it all. I saw it afore Godfrey Pitman was half way through his tale: and matters that have staggered me in Miss Rye, are just as clear to read now as the printing in a big book. When she made that there display at the grave--which you've heard enough of, may be, Mr. Greatorex--she had not had her doubts turned on Godfrey Pitman; she'd thought he was safe away earlier in the afternoon: when she got to learn he had come back again in secret, and was in the house at the time, why then she jumped to the conclusion that he had done the murder. I remember."
Mr. Butterby was right. This was exactly how it had been. Alletha Rye had deemed George Winter guilty all along; on his side, he had only supposed she shunned him on account of the affair at Birmingham. There had been mutual misunderstanding; tacit, shrinking avoidance of all explanation; and not a single word of confidence to clear it all up. George Winter could not seek to be too explicit so long as the secret he was guarding had to be kept: if not for his own sake, for that of others, he was silent.
"As to what Bede's driving at, and who he suspects, I am in ignorance," resumed Mr. Greatorex. "I am not pleased with his conduct: he ought to let me know what he knows."
"Now, don't you blame him afore you hear his reasons, sir. He's sure to have 'em: and I say let him alone till he can take his own time for disclosing things." Which won't be of one while, was the detective's mental conclusion.
"About Miss Rye? Are you here, Butterby?"
The interruption came from Judge Kene. As he walked in, closing the door after him, they could but be struck with the aspect of his face. It was all over of a grey pallor; very much as though its owner had received some shock of terror. "What is the matter, Judge?" hastily asked Mr. Greatorex. "Are you ill?"
"Ill? No. Why do you ask? Look so!--Oh, I have been standing in a room without fire and grew rather cold there," carelessly replied the Judge.