Lady Stanton looked at him with her eyes wide open, and her lips apart.
“You do not—mean anything? You have not—found out anything, Geoff?”
“I—can’t tell,” he said. “I think I have got a clue. If it were found out that Bampfield did not go away—that he was still here, and met poor Walter that fatal morning, what would you say then, you who knew them all?”
All the colour ebbed out of Lady Stanton’s face. She kept looking at him with wistful eyes, into which tears had risen, questioning him with an earnestness beyond speech.
“I dare not say the words,” she said, faltering; “I don’t venture to say the words. But, Geoff, you would not speak like this if you did not mean something. Do you think—really think—oh, it is not possible—it is not possible!—it is only a fancy. You can’t—suppose—that it matters—much—to me. You are only—speculating. Perhaps it ought not to matter much to me. But oh, Geoff! if—if you knew what that time was in my life. Do you mean anything—do you mean anything, my dear?”
“You have not answered my question,” he said. “Which was the most likely to have done a crime?”
Lady Stanton wrung her hands; she could not speak, but kept her eyes upon him in beseeching suspense.
Geoff felt that he had raised a spirit beyond his power to calm again, and he had not intended to commit himself or betray so soon what he had heard.
“Nothing must be known as yet,” he said; “but I think I have some reason to speak. Bampfield did not leave the country when you thought he did. He saw poor Walter that morning. If Musgrave saw him at all—— ”
Lady Stanton gave a little cry—“You mean Walter, Geoff?”