On my pronouncing these words she screamed, and looked at me with a face in which I clearly read that her silence had been sheer sullen mulish obstinacy, with nothing of insanity in it, pure stubborn determination to keep silence that we might think what we chose.
“Mrs. Sheringham in this ship?” she cried, with starting eyes and the wildest, whitest countenance you can imagine.
“Yes,” I answered.
“Then it’s she who murdered Sheringham. She is capable of it, she is a tigress!” she cried in a voice pitched to the note of a scream.
“That’s what I have come to talk to you about, and I am glad you have found your voice.”
“Where is she?” she asked, and a strong shudder ran through her.
“She is in her cabin below, dying; she may be dead even now as we converse.”
She uttered something in Spanish passionately and clasped her hands.
“Now hear me,” said I, “since you have your ears and have found your tongue. You are suspected of having murdered the man you eloped with.”
“It is false!” she shrieked. “I loved him—oh, I loved him!”