“Craik Mansell! How do you know that? Ah,” he pursued, with the scornful intonation of a jealous man, “I forgot that you are lovers.”
The sneer, natural as it was, perhaps, seemed to go to her heart and wake its fiercest indignation.
“Hush,” cried she, towering upon him with an ominous flash of her proud eye. “Do not turn the knife in that wound or you will seal my lips forever.” And she moved hastily away from his side. But in another instant she determinedly returned, saying: “This is no time for indulging in one’s sensibilities. I affirm that Craik Mansell visited his aunt on that day, because the ring which was picked up on the floor of her dining-room—you remember the ring, Mr. Orcutt?”
Remember it! Did he not? All his many perplexities in its regard crowded upon him as he made a hurried bow of acquiescence.
“It belonged to him,” she continued. “He had bought it for me, or, rather, had had the diamond reset for me—it had been his mother’s. Only the day before, he had tried to put it on my finger in a meeting we had in the woods back of his aunt’s house. But I refused to allow him. The prospect ahead was too dismal and unrelenting for us to betroth ourselves, whatever our hopes or wishes might be.”
“You—you had a meeting with this man in the woods the day before his aunt was assaulted,” echoed Mr. Orcutt, turning upon her with an amazement that swallowed up his wrath.
“Yes.”
“And he afterward visited her house?”
“Yes.”
“And dropped that ring there?”
“Yes.”
Starting slowly, as if the thoughts roused by this short statement of facts were such as demanded instant consideration, Mr. Orcutt walked to the other side of the room, where he paced up and down in silence for some minutes. When he returned it was the lawyer instead of the lover who stood before her.
“Then, it was the simple fact of finding this gentleman’s ring on the floor of Mrs. Clemmens’ dining-room that makes you consider him the murderer of his aunt?” he asked, with a tinge of something like irony in his tone.
“No,” she breathed rather than answered. “That was a proof, of course, that he had been there, but I should never have thought of it as an evidence of guilt if the woman herself had not uttered, in our hearing that telltale exclamation of ‘Ring and Hand,’ and if, in the talk I held with Mr. Mansell the day before, he had not betrayed—Why do you stop me?” she whispered.
“I did not stop you,” he hastily assured her. “I am too anxious to hear what you have to say. Go on, Imogene. What did this Mansell betray? I—I ask as a father might,” he added, with some dignity and no little effort.
But her fears had taken alarm, or her caution been aroused, and she merely said:
“The five thousand dollars which his aunt leaves him is just the amount he desired to start him in life.”
“Did he wish such an amount?” Mr. Orcutt asked.
“Very much.”
“And acknowledged it in the conversation he had with you?”
“Yes.”
“Imogene,” declared the lawyer, “if you do not want to insure Mr. Mansell’s indictment, I would suggest to you not to lay too great stress upon any talk you may have held with him.”
But she cried with unmoved sternness, and a relentless crushing down of all emotion that was at once amazing and painful to see:
“The innocent is to be saved from the gallows, no matter what the fate of the guilty may be.”
And a short but agitated silence followed which Mr. Orcutt broke at last by saying:
“Are these all the facts you have to give me?”
She started, cast him a quick look, bowed her head, and replied:
“Yes.”
There was something in the tone of this assertion that made him repeat his question.
“Are these all the facts you have to give me?”
Her answer came ringing and emphatic now.
“Yes,” she avowed—“all.”
With a look of relief, slowly smoothing out the deep furrows of his brow, Mr. Orcutt, for the second time, walked thoughtfully away in evident consultation with his own thoughts. This time he was gone so long, the suspense became almost intolerable to Imogene. Feeling that she could endure it no longer, she followed him at last, and laid her hand upon his arm.
“Speak,” she impetuously cried. “Tell me what you think; what I have to expect.”
But he shook his head.
“Wait,” he returned; “wait till the Grand Jury has brought in a bill of indictment. It will, doubtless, be against one of these two men; but I must know which, before I can say or do anything.”
“And do you think there can be any doubt about which of these two it will be?” she inquired, with sudden emotion.
“There is always doubt,” he rejoined, “about anything or everything a body of men may do. This is a very remarkable case, Imogene,” he resumed, with increased sombreness; “the most remarkable one, perhaps, that has ever come under my observation. What the Grand Jury will think of it; upon which party, Mansell or Hildreth, the weight of their suspicion will fall, neither I nor Ferris, nor any other man, can prophesy with any assurance. The evidence against both is, in so far as we know, entirely circumstantial. That you believe Mr. Mansell to be the guilty party—”
“Believe!” she murmured; “I know it.”
“That you believe him to be the guilty party,” the wary lawyer pursued, as if he had not heard her “does not imply that they will believe it too. Hildreth comes of a bad stock, and his late attempt at suicide tells wonderfully against him; yet, the facts you have to give in Mansell’s disfavor are strong also, and Heaven only knows what the upshot will be. However, a few weeks will determine all that, and then—” Pausing, he looked at her, and, as he did so, the austerity and self-command of the lawyer vanished out of sight, and the passionate gleam of a fierce and overmastering
