"You say something came over you when you were in the boat out there with her on that last day—that you really didn't know what you were doing at the time that you struck her?"
"Yes, sir, that's the truth." And here Clyde went on to explain once more just what his state was at that time.
"All right, all right, I believe you," replied Jephson, seemingly believing what Clyde said but not actually able to conceive it at that. "But you know, of course, that no jury, in the face of all these other circumstances, is going to believe that," he now announced. "There are too many things that'll have to be explained and that we can't very well explain as things now stand. I don't know about that idea." He now turned and was addressing Belknap. "Those two hats, that bag—unless we're going to plead insanity or something like that. I'm not so sure about all this. Was there ever any insanity in your family that you know of?" he now added, turning to Clyde once more.
"No, sir, not that I know of."
"No uncle or cousin or grandfather who had fits or strange ideas or anything like that?"
"Not that I ever heard of, no, sir."
"And your rich relatives down there in Lycurgus—I suppose they'd not like it very much if I were to step up and try to prove anything like that?"
"I'm afraid they wouldn't, no, sir," replied Clyde, thinking of Gilbert.
"Well, let me see," went on Jephson after a time. "That makes it rather hard. I don't see, though, that anything else would be as safe." And here he turned once more to Belknap and began to inquire as to what he thought of suicide as a theory, since Roberta's letters themselves showed a melancholy trend which might easily have led to thoughts of suicide. And could they not say that once out on the lake with Clyde and pleading with him to marry her, and he refusing to do so, she had jumped overboard. And he was too astounded and mentally upset to try to save her.
"But what about his own story that the wind had blown his hat off, and in trying to save that he upset the boat?" interjected Belknap, and exactly as though Clyde were not present.