"How do you know that?" he gasped. "I never said a syllable to you about it."
"It matters not how I know it, so long as I do know it," she answered, looking him steadily in the face as she did so, and beginning to tap her teeth with her long pointed nails.
"Well, whoever told you, told you no more than the truth. I did love Clara Danby, and I hoped to make her my wife. But all that was past and gone long; before I met you."
She did not reply, but only went on tapping her teeth the more.
"Putting aside my own feelings towards Brooke," went on Crofton presently, "who has done me all the harm that one man could possibly do to another, don't you see that if he should be arrested and found guilty of this crime, what a vast difference it would make in your fortunes and mine?"
"Expliquez-vous, s'il vous plait."
"Should Gerald Brooke die without issue, by the terms of my uncle's will Beechley Towers and all the estates pertaining to it, including a rent-roll of close on six thousand a year, come absolutely to me--to me--comprenez-vous? Ah, what a sweet revenge mine will be!"
"Yes; I should think it would be rather nice to live at a grand place like Beechley Towers and have an income of six thousand a year," answered Mrs. Crofton quietly. "So, if this cousin of yours is really guilty, let us hope for our own sakes that he will be duly caught and hanged."
Crofton turned to the table, and having poured out nearly half a tumbler of brandy, he drank it off at a draught. Excitement had so far unnerved him that the glass rattled against his teeth as he drank.
"But what could possibly induce a man in Mr. Brooke's position to commit such a crime?" asked Stephanie presently.