Her hand was motionless in mine. It was like a sleeping thing.
“I killed Philip LaMotte, who was in the way of my will.”
Her eyes seemed to be drawing forward from their distant focus to my mouth, as if what they had seen before within was now articulate there.
“My will killed the man whom my eyes had never seen, whose name I did not know, nor whose existence until you told me he was dead. My mind knows that, now.”
I could not bear her hand, this dead thing in my own. I could not let it go.
“There was another obstacle to our perfect marriage. I was poor, Mildred ... and my work was the sort men praise, the sort that nourishes men, but that they do not pay for. I went to see my parents, on that same fatal night when I was with you, and when my will was slaying my one rival. I told my parents of you: I begged them to give me money, so that I might ask you to become my wife. They refused. Mother, because she loved me selfishly and did not wish me to marry. Father because he loved only his ease.
“... I slew my parents.”
Then I could let loose her hand.
With her other hand she clasped the hand I had held. She felt it: she shuddered. She let it drop to her side.
“My will did away with my parents. I am their heir. I am rich.”