“Silas has lied away his brother’s life to save himself,” she said. “I see cowardly falsehood and cowardly cruelty in every line on that paper. Ambrose is innocent, and the time has come to prove it.”
“You forget,” I said, “that we have just failed to prove it.”
“John Jago is alive, in hiding from us and from all who know him,” she went on. “Help me, friend Lefrank, to advertise for him in the newspapers.”
I drew back from her in speechless distress. I own I believed that the new misery which had fallen on her had affected her brain.
“You don’t believe it,” she said. “Shut the door.”
I obeyed her. She seated herself, and pointed to a chair near her.
“Sit down,” she proceeded. “I am going to do a wrong thing; but there is no help for it. I am going to break a sacred promise. You remember that moonlight night when I met him on the garden walk?”
“John Jago?”
“Yes. Now listen. I am going to tell you what passed between John Jago and me.”