“Why did you not say this at the inquest?” asked Ralph. “You might have cleared Simeon Stagg. Was it because you must have accused my father?”
“I can't say it was that. I felt guilty myself. I felt as if half the crime had been mine.”
There was another pause.
“Robbie,” Ralph said at length, “would you, if I wished it, say no more about all this?”
“I've said nothing till now, and I need say nothing more.”
“Sim will be as silent—if I ask him. There is my poor mother, my lad; she can't live long, and why should she be stricken down? Her dear old head is bowed low enough already.”
“I promise you, Ralph,” said Robbie. He had turned half aside, and was speaking falteringly. He remembered one whose head had been bowed lower still—one whose heart had been sick for his own misdeeds, and now the grass was over her.
“Then that is agreed.”
“Ralph, there's something I should have said before, but I was afeared to say it. Who would have believed the word of a drunkard? That's what I was, God forgive me! Besides, it would have done no good to say it, that I can see, and most likely some harm.”
“What was it?”