"You must let me explain," I said. "If you don't you will regret it all your life. You thought I was drunk last night, but I was not."
I waited for some response from her, but she said nothing. I went on again eagerly.
"I was shamming, and with a purpose. Only by that means—only by making the doctor think that I was practically unconscious of what he was doing, was I able to observe him clearly. They tried to poison you last night."
I suppose she saw the truth in my face; she came suddenly to me, and laid her hands on my arm, and looked at me with startled eyes. "To poison me?" she echoed breathlessly.
"Yes, the doctor and Martha Leach. That was why I upset the table and flung the wine away. If you had seen me five minutes after you left the room, you would have known what my real condition was. The doctor knew it, I can assure you!" I laughed at the recollection.
Debora looked quickly all round about her, with the frightened air of one who would escape, but sees no way; there was a hunted look in her eyes that appalled me. "What shall I do?" she whispered. "I am more frightened than I care to say, because I know Dr. Just, and I know how relentless he can be. Don't you understand, John," she went on piteously, "how utterly powerless I am? Anything may happen to me in this dreadful house. I may be killed in any one of a dozen ways; and this well-known physician and scientist, against whom no word of suspicion would be spoken, can give an easy account of my death. What am I to do?"
"I can't for the life of me understand why he should wish to kill you," I said, "unless it be a mere matter of revenge."
"It isn't that," she answered me slowly. "You see, my poor father trusted him so completely, and believed in him so much, that in addition to placing me under his guardianship he put a clause in his will which, in the event of my death, leaves the whole of my property to Dr. Bardolph Just."
Now, for the first time, I saw into the heart of this amazing business; I had probed the motive. He would have secured the girl if he could; failing that, he would secure her property. As he knew that she might, in any ordinary event, pass out of his life, if only by the common gate of marriage, he had determined to get rid of her, and so secure easily what was hers. The whole thing was explained now clearly enough.
"What you must do," I answered steadily, wondering a little at my own bravery in suggesting it, "is to come away from this house with me. You must trust me to look after you."