Willy sat down stupefied. With a wild and rigid look, he stared at Rotha as they sat face to face, eye to eye. He said nothing. A sense of horror mastered him.
“And this is not all,” continued Rotha, the tears rolling down her cheeks. “What would you say of the person who did it—of the person who put Ralph in the way of this—this death?” cried the girl, now burying her face in her hands.
Willy's lips were livid. They moved as if in speech, but the words would not come.
“What would I say?” he said at length, bitterly and scornfully, as he rose from his seat with rigid limbs. “I would say—” He stopped; his teeth were clinched. He drew one hand impatiently across his face. The idea that Simeon Stagg must have been the informer had at that moment got possession of his mind. “Never ask me what I would say,” he cried.
“Willy, dear Willy,” sobbed Rotha, throwing her arms about him, “that person—”
The sobs were stifling her, but she would not spare herself.
“That person was MYSELF!”
“You!” cried Willy, breaking from her embrace. “And the murder?” he asked hoarsely, “whose murder?”
“James Wilson's.”
“Let me go—let me go, I say.”