"I had fully made up my mind that this our last interview should be as brief a one as possible. I was morbidly anxious to regain possession of my letters. Unless I did so there was no knowing into whose hands they might fall nor what use might be made of them. And then for Evan Wildash to have committed suicide at the door of my husband's house would have been a dreadful thing indeed!
"The clock struck eight as my husband was putting on his overcoat in the hall. I tied a muffler round his throat, and at the door he kissed me, as he always did, even if he were not going to be more than an hour away. Alas and alas! how little did I dream that it was the last time he would ever press his lips to mine!
"After he was gone I scarcely blow how the time passed till nine o'clock. As I look back in memory, everything that happened that night after my husband's departure seems as far removed from reality as is the recollection of some hideous nightmare. It is enough to say that I was at the corner of the churchyard within five minutes of the appointed hour, where I found Evan already waiting for me.
"Of what passed between us I have only the vaguest recollection--after-events seem almost to have blotted the record from my mind. I remember with what a feeling of relief my fingers closed over my letters, which, however, he did not yield up without evident reluctance. Half a minute later his clenched hand went up to his heart, and, with a low cry, he staggered backward, and would have fallen had not his other hand instinctively gripped one of the churchyard railings. 'That accursed pain again!' he exclaimed with a groan. 'Brandy!--I must have brandy! or I shall die.'
"I gazed around in despair. As I have said, the place was a lonely one. There was no tavern in sight, nor, indeed, was I sure in which direction the nearest one lay. By this time he was resting his back against the railings, and even by that dim light I could discern that his features were warped by agony. Then a thought struck me. I had planned so as to leave Loudwater House unknown to anyone, having made my exit not by way of the front door, but through my husband's private office, one door of which opens into a side lane. My intention was to go back the same way, which the latch-key I had brought with me--applicable to both the front and side doors--would allow of my doing. It now struck me that if only Evan could walk as far as the office I might be able to get him some brandy from the liqueur-case upstairs unseen by anybody. I told him my idea, and he assented to it eagerly. How in the agony he was in he contrived to get as far as Loudwater House I cannot tell; but there we were at last. I opened the door with my key and went in first, he following. The place was in darkness; but I knew where matches were always to be found. 'Wait by the door till I get a light,' I said, being afraid lest he might stumble over something in the dark. Whether he did not heed me, or did not hear me, I have no means of knowing. In any case, he groped his way forward into the room, and a moment later an exclamation broke from his lips. He had half fallen over some obstruction on the floor. As I struck a match, and the gas-jet leapt up, I turned my head to see what had happened. By that he had recovered his footing, and, the instant the room became flooded with light, I saw that he was staring intently at his outstretched hands. Without my being aware of it, my eyes followed the direction of his. Then I saw that his hands were wet--nay, more; that they were bedabbled with blood. A moment I gazed, horror-stricken, then my eyes travelled downward, and the dread knowledge burst upon me that the object over which Evan had stumbled was none other than the murdered body of my husband!
"Frozen, I stood there gazing at the ghastly object--all the currents of life seeming, for the time being, to stand still. As for Evan, his gaze wandered from his hands to the body, and thence back to his hands. Then, all at once, he burst into a harsh, discordant, maniacal laugh, almost more dreadful to hear than was that which lay so white and still on the floor to look upon.
"'Blood!--blood on my hands--and his blood!' he cried with a half shriek. 'They will say that I did it--I--I!' Again his madman's laugh rang through the room. Then, with a last stare at his crimsoned hands, he turned, and, as I verily believe, without as much as another look at me, he flung wide the door and, passing with staggering strides out into the night, vanished from my sight for ever.
"But before that I was down on my knees by the side of my dead husband. How did I know he was dead? you may possibly ask. My first glance at his face had been enough to assure me that no faintest spark of life animated the marble-like image at my feet. On it was stamped the indescribable seal of death. For all that, as I now knelt by him my hand felt for his heart, but not the slightest fluttering responded to the pressure of my palm. He must have been dead some time. Already the hand I took in mine, and the brow to which I pressed my lips, were of an icy coldness.
"Presently I stood up and asked myself what I ought to do next. An unnatural calm possessed me. My eyes were dry and burning, but it seemed to me as if my limbs were as cold as those of the corpse at my feet. Tears would come later on, tears in abundance, but just then the fountains were fast sealed. I knew, no one better, that what I ought to have done was there and then to raise an alarm and summon the police with all possible speed. 'But if I do that,' I said, 'how can I explain away my presence at this untimely hour? And what if Evan, in his half-demented condition, and with his blood-imbrued hands, should be arrested and confronted with me? Would it not, in such a case, go hard with the pair of us, innocent though we are?' My poor dear husband was dead, of that there could be no doubt. It could do him no good, but might do me infinite harm, were the slightest shadow of suspicion to fall upon me in connection with the mystery of his murder, as would almost inevitably be the case were I found in that room at that hour with my outdoor things on, without anyone in the house dreaming that I was otherwhere than in my own chamber.
"Such were some of the thoughts that surged through my brain while one might have counted a dozen slowly. My mind was made up. After one last shuddering glance at my poor dear one, I put out the gas, opened the inner door without noise, satisfied myself that no one was about, sped upstairs and reached my own room unseen. A quarter of an hour later I rang the bell, to which Charlotte, the housemaid, responded. Under the pretence of being without an envelope in which to enclose a letter I had just written, I asked her to take a lighted candle, go down to Mr. Melray's office, and bring me one from there. The rest is known.