I turned away from her then; I dared not look at her. For a time there was a dead silence in the room, broken only by the curious slow ticking of an old eight-day clock in the corner. I remember that I found myself mechanically counting the strokes while I waited for her to speak.
When at last I could bear the tension no longer I looked round at her. She stood there, frozen, as it were, in the attitude in which I had seen her, looking at me with a face of horror. Then at last, in a sort of broken whisper, she got out a sentence or two.
"You—you changed clothes? Then he—he became the convict—dead? What—what became of him?"
"He lies buried—in my name—within the walls of Penthouse Prison."
She stared at me for a moment as though not understanding; seemed to murmur the words under her breath. Then she clapped her hands suddenly over her face.
"Oh—dear God!" she cried out.
I began to murmur excuses and pleadings. "The fault was not mine, the boy was dead, and no further harm could come to him. I wanted to live—I was so young myself, and I wanted to begin life again. I never thought——"
She dropped her hands, and faced me boldly; I saw the tears swimming in her eyes. "You never thought!" she cried. "You never thought of what it meant for him, with no sin upon him, to lie in a felon's grave! You never thought that there was anyone on earth might miss him, and sorrow for him, and long for him! You wanted to live—you, that had broken prison—you, a common thief! You coward!"
I said no more; it seemed almost as if the solid earth was slipping away from under my feet. I cared nothing for what might happen to me; I knew that I had lost her, and that I should never touch her hand again in friendship. I stood there, waiting, as though for the sentence she must pronounce.
"I never want to see your face again," she said at last, in a low voice. "I do not know yet what I shall do; I have not had time to think. But I want you to go away, to leave me; I have done with you."