Suddenly a strange voice was in the room. “And I, Mr. Pendleton, believe in the possible implication of everyone here, including myself.” Paula Lebetwood said the words, unlike any speech we had heard from her lips, a terribly controlled utterance, toneless, as if some insentient thing had spoken. She stood up. The tremor of her throat was still.
“Of yourself, dearest?” cried Miss Mertoun. “How awful to say such a thing!”
“Of yourself!” echoed half a dozen voices.
She was looking straight ahead, sightlessly. “Isn’t it too clear for words? Can’t you understand how I feel?—how I have felt all these weeks? It rests on me, don’t you see? How can I ever touch a cent that was his until his killer has paid for his death? Oh, I’ve felt it ever since he told me—told me he was going to make his Will—” Her eyes darkened, and the first tinge of feeling came into her voice: bitterness. “I was a fool. I should have told him—then.”
Miss Mertoun came over, leaned her cheek against Paula’s, recalling to me that first scene by the tower on the lawn. “Paula, dearest.” Gently she pressed the American girl back into her seat, soothed her with soft little speeches, almost made her smile.
Suddenly Mrs. Bartholomew lifted her head, an expression of penetrative power on her face, as if she were probing beyond the realm of sense. She made a quick outreaching gesture with her hands, withdrew them, clasped them in her lap. She began to speak once, but checked herself. Then:
“I have the eeriest feeling, but it is strong, so strong!”
“What feeling do you mean?” asked Alberta Pendleton with bated breath.
Eve Bartholomew’s eyes were shining wide. “That Sir Brooke is here, now, among us!”
She stirred us. We pitied her then, in silence. Whatever he had been to her, or she to him—