“I have never known Maria to be dishonest, father.”
“Maria,” Dr. Barnhelm went to her, distressed, appealing. “That money was borrowed by me to pay for the electrical apparatus that is to repay me for all the work of my whole life. You know, Maria, how, day and night, for months and years, I have gone on, changing, adding, destroying, working. I neglected everything and everybody for it. You know how much it means to me!”
For a moment she could not answer, although they all stood there, waiting. At last her voice came slowly through the sobs that shook her from head to foot:
“You’re killing me, that’s what you’re doing, killing me! Tearing my heart out of me. There ain’t a man, nor a woman, in all the world that I love like I love you! I’d rather be dead a million times than do what you think I’ve done. You are all the good I’ve ever known, you folks, but I wish to God I’d never seen you. I wish to God you’d left me where I was.”
“Mon Dieu!” cried Dr. Crossett. “What is a man to think?”
“You all believe I done it,” went on Maria, “don’t you? You’ve all said so, all but just you.” She faced John squarely, but John dropped his head; he could not meet her eye. “You think so, too,” she continued. “You’ve got to think so, because,” she stepped close up to him, “because the awful part of it is that it was just me—or her!” She raised her hand slowly, pointing at Lola.
“Lola,” John turned to her, a queer, hesitating, doubtful tone in his voice. “Maria is such a good girl, I—I——”
“Well?”
“There—there is no chance of—of a mistake is there—you—you did not——”
“No,” replied Lola calmly, “I didn’t.”