The voice was still. There was silence, broken by the sound of some one moving. The room was filled with a bright light. The voice came again.
"Isabel Burney!"
The woman on her knees, dropping her hands, looked round. By a lighted lamp which rested on a writing-table stood Margaret Wallace. Whether Mrs. Lamb realised that she was looking at the girl herself, or supposed that she was confronted by a materialised phantom, has never been certainly known. She stared at her surlily, unblinkingly, affrightedly, as one might stare at some unpleasing object in a dream. The girl repeated the questions which had already been answered. As one listened the last remnants of doubt vanished as to whose was the voice which had already made itself so prominent.
"Did you trick Cuthbert Grahame into signing a will in which he left all that he had to you, when he supposed himself to be signing one in which he left it all to me?"
There was a momentary hesitation, then the answer, spoken sullenly, half beneath her breath, yet plain enough.
"Yes; I did."
"And did you then kill him because you feared discovery of what you had done?"
"Yes; I did."
There was another movement on the other side of the room. When Mrs. Lamb looked round she found herself looking at Dr. Twelves, who put a question to her on his own account.
"So you lied to me when you said those pillows must have slipped--you knew better. As I suspected, you dragged them away--you female fiend!"