“She is not the woman to keep any promise, Willoughby. It is just as I feared! She is afraid to tell the truth lest she herself should suffer. Her words only confirm that.”
I recalled what she had said, and was bound to agree.
“But surely,” I cried, “the outlook is not so black as you anticipate? If this woman, in order to safeguard herself, refuses to speak, are there not other means by which the truth could be revealed?”
“No—none!” was her despairing answer as she shook her head.
“Perhaps I acted unwisely in allowing them to slip through the fingers of the police?” I suggested.
“No. It was wise, very wise. Had they been arrested they would both have sought to seriously incriminate me—and—and the blow would have fallen. I—I should have killed myself to avoid arrest,” she added in the low hoarse voice of a woman absolutely desperate.
“Oh, don’t speak like that, Lolita,” I urged earnestly. “Recollect you have at least in me a true and loyal friend. I will defend you by every means in my power. You refuse to tell me this strange secret of yours; nevertheless I am ready to serve you without seeking to penetrate the mystery which you are so determined to withhold.”
“I would tell you everything if I dared,” she assured me with a sweet grateful look upon her countenance, and I saw that upon her veil a teardrop glistened. I saw too how agitated she was, and how she longed to take me entirely into her confidence—yet dared not do so. Why, I wondered, had she made no remark upon the tragedy or upon the Coroner’s verdict that morning. Was that, too, a subject which she dare not mention?
I glanced at the boots she was wearing, and saw that they were small dark-brown ones but with those same Louis XV heels that had left such tell-tale traces.
“Is your secret such a terrible one that you fear to entrust it to me?” I asked gravely after a brief pause.