Her lips were twitching and her eyes were ablaze.
"You ask me why I wished to punish him?" she said. "Very well, I will tell you. Because—" she paused, hesitated, breathed hard, and then said, "because he killed my father."
Gordon gasped, his face became distorted, his lips grew pale, he tried to speak but could only stammer out broken exclamations.
"Great God! Hele——"
"Oh, you may not believe it, but I know," said Helena.
And then, with a rush of emotion, in a torrent of hot words, she told him how Ishmael Ameer had been the last man seen in her father's company; how she had seen them together and they were quarrelling; how her father had been found dead a few minutes after Ishmael had left him; how she had found him; how other evidence gave proof, abundant proof, that violence, as a contributory means at least, had been the cause of her father's death; and how the authorities knew this perfectly, but were afraid, in the absence of conclusive evidence, to risk a charge against one whom the people in their blindness worshipped.
"So I was left alone—quite alone—for you were gone too—and therefore I vowed that if there was no one else I would punish him."
"And that is what you——"
"Yes."
"O God! O God!"