"Can't we dispense with all this? You have come to tell me that my father did not die from natural causes—isn't that it?"
"Yes ... that is to say ... pardon me ... we are alone?"
Helena assented impatiently.
"Then, to tell you the truth ... I am satisfied that violence ... as a contributing cause, at all events ... I looked at him again this morning, when ... at the last moment, in fact ... and the marks were even plainer than before."
"Marks?"
"Marks of a man's hand about the throat."
"A man's hand?" said Helena, with her lips rather than with her voice.
"I thought at first it might have been the General's own hand, but there was one peculiarity which forbade that inference."
"Tell me."
"It was the left hand, and while the thumb and the first, second, and fourth fingers were plainly indicated, there was no impression made by the third."