For the first time a doubt entered the girl's mind.
"Mr Morice, do you wish me to understand that you propose to surrender merely to save me?"
"I wish you to understand nothing of the sort. The position is--in its essence--melodrama; but do let us make it as little melodramatic as we conveniently can. Someone must suffer for the--blunder. It may as well be me. Why not?"
"Do you wish me--seriously--to believe that it was not you who--blundered?"
"Of course I blundered--and I've kept on blundering ever since. One blunder generally does lead to another, don't you know. Come--Miss Arnott"--each time, as she noticed, there was a perceptible pause before he pronounced the name to which she still adhered--"matters have reached a stage when, at any moment, events may be expected to move quickly. Your first business must be to get that drawer open--key or no key--and let me have that knife. You may send it by parcel post if you like. Anyhow, only let me have it. And, at latest, by tomorrow night. Believe me, moments are becoming precious. By the way, I hope it hasn't been--cleaned."
"No, it hasn't been cleaned."
"That would have been to commit a cardinal error. In an affair of this sort blood-stains are the things we want; the pièces de conviction which judge and jury most desire. Give me the knife--my knife--that did the deed, with the virginal blood-stains thick upon it. Let it be properly discovered by a keen-nosed constable in an ostentatious hiding-place, and the odds are a hundred to one as to what the verdict will be. A hundred? a million! I assure you that I already feel the cravat about my neck." Hugh Morice put his hand up to his throat with a gesture which made Miss Arnott shiver. "Only, I do beg of you, lose no time. Get that drawer open within the hour, and let me have my hunting-knife before you have your dinner. Let me entreat you to grasp this fact clearly. At any moment Jim Baker may be out of Winchester Gaol; someone will have to take his place. That someone must be me."
CHAPTER XXVI
[THE TWO MAIDS]
After Hugh Morice had left her, Miss Arnott had what was possibly the worst of all her bad half hours. The conviction of his guilt had been so deeply rooted in her mind that it required something like a cataclysm to disturb its foundations. She had thought that nothing could have shaken it; yet it had been shaken, and by the man himself. As she had listened to what he had been saying, an impression had been taking hold of her, more and more, that she had misjudged him. If so, where was she herself standing? A dreadful feeling had been stealing on her that he genuinely believed of her what she had believed of him. If such was the case, what actually was her position.