"I did," she answered. "Mr. Blake told me."
"That admission took me by surprise. It would greatly facilitate the discharge of my duty towards you if you would even now take me a little more fully into your confidence."
"There is nothing farther to tell--nothing further to conceal," she said, in a slow, emotionless voice.
He threw himself back, and did not speak at once. At length he moved uneasily in his place, and said, after deliberation:
"I appealed to you once, and cautioned you several times. I may now tell you, as a matter of certainty, not as a matter of my own personal opinion, but of ascertained fact, that the theory of what I must now call the defence will not stand a trial, and that a trial there will be."
"I have nothing to add," she said, in an unmoved tone.
"Up to this I have not told you the most unpleasant, the most significant and alarming fact of all."
"What is that?"--in the same voice.
"I hope you will try and face the horrible position with fortitude. I spoke of a trial as now inevitable."
"You mean something more than this inquest?"--in the same tone, but a little more deliberately.