"That matters nothing. You saw the deed done. The old man was killed, and then robbed, in your sight"—I came toward her, and lowered my voice to a stern, judicial whisper, while the poor girl shrank back as though I were law itself uttering judgment upon her. If she had known what stagy guesswork it all was! "When you were discovered, the murderer would have shot you to insure your silence."
"I wish he had! It was Thad who would have done that. The white man's way was more cruel—oh, God knows it was more cruel!"
(There were two then.) I was very sorry for the girl, but I had a keen pleasure in the slow unfolding of the secret, just as I suppose the physician takes delight in the study of a new disease, even if it kills the patient.
"Yes," I said with emphasis. "I believe that it would have been less suffering for you, Miss Waring, to have died then than to have lived, forced as you were to renounce your lover, and to carry about with you the dread of the threat made by those men."
"I have not said there was a threat made. I have betrayed nothing." She had seated herself some time before by the table. There was a large bronze inkstand before her, and as she listened she arranged a half dozen pens evenly on the rest. The words she heard and spoke mattered more to her than life or death; her features were livid as those of a corpse, yet her hands went on with their mechanical work—one pen did not project a hair's breadth beyond the other. We lawyers know how common such puerile, commonplace actions are in the supreme moments of life, and how seldom men wring their hands, or use tragic gesture, or indeed words.
"No, you have betrayed nothing," I said calmly. "Your self-control has been remarkable, even when we remember that you believed your confession would be followed by speedy vengeance, not on your head, but Colonel Merrick's."
She looked up not able to speak for a minute. "You—you know all?"
"Not all, but enough to assure you that your time of suffering is over. You can speak freely, unharmed."
Her head dropped on the table. She was crying, and, I think, praying.
"You saw Houston Simms killed by two men, one of whom, the negro Thad, you knew. The white man's face was covered. You did not recognize him. But he knew you, and the surest way to compel you to silence. I wish you now to state to me all the details of this man's appearance, voice, and manner, to show me any letters which you have received from him since" (a random guess, which I saw hit the mark)—"in short, every circumstance which you can recall about him."