"I am; but--when you think what you do--I couldn't!"
"Miss Gilbert, if you could see my thoughts, I doubt if you'd object to them; only, I'm older than you are, and I just feel that, if you're not careful, you're likely to be in a tighter place than you have any notion of; and, being so much older, if you were to tell me just what happened last night at 'The Bolton Arms,' I might be of some slight use in getting you out of it. That's all there is at the back of my mind, as regards you. So, if you can bring yourself to make of me a confidant, I'll respect your confidence, and whatever kind of trouble it is you're in I'll be all the service to you I can."
She looked at him, carefully; as if considering what kind of person he really was; and then she told him, everything there was to tell. She did not seem to find it easy to start; but, when she once had started, she poured out all that was in her heart, as a child might have done. As he listened, strange though her story was, he knew she was telling the truth. The pathos of it, of which she herself seemed to be so oddly unconscious, touched him more than he would have cared to own. And, manlike, because that was so, his outward manner put on an additional shade of gruffness. Suddenly she startled him by putting a leading question.
"Now do you think that I killed him, or that I didn't?"
He tried to fence.
"That's not altogether an easy question to answer."
"Oh yes, it is; it's perfectly simple and perfectly easy; either I did or I didn't: there can only be one answer."
"Pardon me, but, from what I can gather, it's a point on which you yourself seem to have some doubts."
"I know I have. Of course I know I never actually touched him; but--perhaps I might have prevented him being touched; and--when he began to make those noises I might have got him help; and so--I don't quite know how it is. What I want to know is what you think; if you have the slightest atom of a doubt you had better take me over to Newcaster, and hand me over to a policeman."
"In any case I certainly sha'n't do that."