"Then he was the one! I wanted to kill him, I couldn't kill him because I never was sure."
"Did you see him go out an hour or so ago?" Paredes asked.
"I saw him," she cried feverishly, "run from the back of the house and down the path to the lake. I—I tried to catch him, but my feet were frozen, and the snow was slippery, and I couldn't find my shoes. But I called and he wouldn't stop. I had to know, because I wanted to kill him if it was Silas Blackburn. And I saw him run to the lake and splash in until the water was over his head."
She flung her clenched hands out. Her voice became a scream, shot with all her suffering, all her doubt, all her fury.
"You don't understand. He can't be punished. I tell you he's at the bottom of the lake with the man he murdered. And I can't pay him. I tried to go after him, but it—it was too cold."
She sank in one of the chairs, shaking and sobbing.
"Unless we want another tragedy," the doctor said, "this woman must be put to bed and taken care of. She has been terribly exposed. You've heard her. She's delirious."
"Not so delirious that she hasn't told the truth," Paredes said.
The doctor lifted her in his arms and with Rawlins's help carried her upstairs. Katherine went with them. Almost immediately the doctor and Rawlins hurried down.
"I have told Katherine what to do," Doctor Groom said. "The woman may be all right in the morning. What's she been up to here?"