“Something I must tell you now. When I had told my story to Colin, one thing I had not told him, because I was afraid what he might do. I had not told him the name of the man who had caused me to suffer so much. On the day I first saw Señor Menendez walking in the garden of Cray’s Folly I knew I must tell my husband what he had so often asked me to tell him—the name of the man. I told him—and at first I thought he would go mad. He began to drink—do you know? It is a failing in his family. But because I knew—because I knew—I forgave him, and hoped, always hoped, that he would stop. He promised to do so. He had given up going out each day to drink, and was working again like he used to work—too hard, too hard, but it was better than the other way.”
She stopped speaking, and suddenly, before I could divine her intention, dropped upon her knees, and raised her clasped hands to me.
“He did not, he did not kill him!” she cried, passionately. “He did not! O God! I who love him tell you he did not! You think he did. You do—you do! I can see it in your eyes!”
“Believe me, Mrs. Camber,” I answered, deeply moved, “I don’t doubt your word for a moment.”
She continued to look at me for a while, and then turned to Val Beverley.
“You don’t think he did,” she sobbed, “do you?”
She looked such a child, such a pretty, helpless child, as she knelt there on the carpet, that I felt a lump rising in my throat.
Val Beverley dropped down impulsively beside her and put her arms around the slender shoulders.
“Of course I don’t,” she exclaimed, indignantly. “Of course I don’t. It’s quite unthinkable.”
“I know it is,” moaned the other, raising her tearful face. “I love him and know his great soul. But what do these others know, and they will never believe me.”