"I'll be ready for the danger--when it comes. I'll not be afraid. What I meant was that I have been actually supposed to have been seen killing that man. Someone was seen to kill him, and that someone was a woman."
"You're quite sure, miss, that it wasn't you? You're quite sure?"
"Quite, Evans; don't you be afraid."
"Then if that's so, miss, I don't mind. If you're innocent I don't care what they do; let them do their worst."
"That's what I feel--exactly. But I wish you'd let me make my meaning clear to you! If a woman did do it, then--though I confess I don't understand how--we must all of us be on the wrong scent, and the woman who has been seen wandering through the woods at dead of night--and that such an one has been seen I have good reasons for knowing--is the one we want. So what we have to do is to identify that somnambulist."
"But how are we going to do it?"
"That, as yet, I own is more than I can tell you. The first step is to make sure it isn't me."
"Don't you fret about that, miss; I'm sure it isn't. I'll take these things away and get 'em in soak at once." She gathered up the various garments which her mistress had worn on that fateful night. "I wish you'd let me take that knife; I'd feel safer if you would."
"Thank you, Evans; but at present I'd rather you left the knife with me."
As Evans left the room Mrs Plummer came in, in the state of fluster which, of late, was her chronic condition.