"No--but it's true; it is!"

"But, if your supposition is to hold good, how did your father happen to be in possession of that dagger, which evidently was made with malice aforethought, as the lawyers say?"

"Exactly," she said, her lips quivering, hands gripping spasmodically at her knees. "He didn't do it! He didn't do it! Berne's idea was a mistake!"

"Who, then?" he pressed her, realizing now that she was so unstrung she would give him her thoughts unguarded.

"Why, that man Russell," she said, her voice so low and the words so slow that he thought her at the limit of her endurance. "But I've said all this to show you why Berne put his hand over the judge's mouth. I want to make it very clear that he feared father--think of it, Mr.

Hastings!--had killed her! At first, I thought----"

She bowed her face in both her hands and wept unrestrainedly, without sobs, the tears streaming between her fingers and down her wrists.

The old man put one hand on her hair, and with the other brought forth his handkerchief, being bothered by the sudden mistiness of his spectacles.

"A brave girl," he said, his own voice insecure. "What a woman! I know what you mean. At first, you feared your father might have been concerned in the murder. I saw it in your eyes last night. You had the same thought that young Webster had--rather, that you say he had."

Her weeping ceased as suddenly as it had begun. She looked at him through tears.

"And I've only injured Berne in your eyes; I think, irreparably! This morning I thought you heard me when I asked him not to let it be known that our engagement was broken? Don't you remember? You were on the porch as we came around the corner."

For the first time since its utterance, he recalled her statement then, "We'll have to leave it as it was," and Webster's significant rejoinder.

He despised his own stupidity. Had he magnified Webster's desire to keep that promise into guilty knowledge of the crime itself? And had not the mistake driven him into false and valueless interpretations of his entire interview with Webster?

"He promised," Lucille pursued, "for the same reason I had in asking it--to prevent discovery of the fact that father might have had a motive for wishing her dead! It was a mistake, I see now, a terrible mistake!"

"Can you tell me why you didn't have the same thoughts about Berne?" He was sorry he had to make that inquiry. If he could, he would have spared her further distress. "Why wouldn't he have had the same motive, hatred of Mildred Brace, a thousand times stronger?"

"I don't know," she said. "I simply never thought of it--not once."

Fine psychologist that he was, Hastings knew why that view had not occurred to her. Her love for Webster was an idealizing sentiment, putting him beyond even the possibility of wrong-doing. Her love for her father, unusual in its devotion as it was, recognized his weaknesses nevertheless.

And, while seeking to protect the two, she had told a story which, so far as bald facts went, incriminated the lover far more than the father.

She had attributed to Sloane, in her uneasiness, the motive which would have been most natural to the discarded Webster. Even now, she could not suspect Berne; her only fear was that others, not understanding him as she did, might suspect him! Although she had broken with him, she still loved him. More than that: his illness and consequent helplessness increased her devotion for him, brought to the surface the maternal phase of it.

"If she had to choose between the two," Hastings thought, "she'd save Webster--every time!"

"I know--I tell you, Mr. Hastings, I _know_ neither Berne nor father is at all responsible for this crime. I tell you," she repeated, rising to her feet, as if by mere physical height she hoped to impress her knowledge upon him, "I _know_ they're innocent.--Don't _you_ know it?"

She stood looking down at him, her whole body tense, arms held close against her sides, the knuckles of her fingers white as ivory. Her eyes now were dry, and brilliant.

He evaded the flat statement to which she pressed him.

"But your knowledge, Miss Sloane, and what we must prove," he said, also standing, "are two different things just now. The authorities will demand proofs."

"I know. That's why I've told you these things." Somehow, her manner reproached him. "You said you had to have them in order to handle this--this situation properly. Now that you know them, I'm sure you'll feel safe in devoting all your time to proving Russell's guilt." She moved her head forward, to study him more closely. "You know he's guilty, don't you?"

"I'm certain Mrs. Brace figured in her daughter's murder," he said. "She was concerned in it somehow. If that's true, and if your father approached neither her nor her daughter yesterday, it does seem highly possible that Russell's guilty."

He turned from her and stood at the window, his back to her a few long moments. When he faced her again, he looked old.

"But the facts--if we could only break down Russell's alibi!"

"Oh!" she whispered, in new alarm. "I'd forgotten that!"

All the tenseness went out of her limbs. She sank into her chair, and sat there, looking up to him, her eyes frankly confessing a panic fear.

"I think I'm sorry I told you," she said, desperately. "I can't make you understand!" Another consideration forced itself upon her. "You won't have to tell anybody--anybody at all--about this, will you--now?"

He was prepared for that.

"I'll have to ask Judge Wilton why he acted on Mr. Webster's advice--and what that advice was, what they whispered to each other when you saw them."

"Why, that's perfectly fair," she a.s.sented, relieved. "That will stop all the secrecy between them and me. It's the very thing I want. If that's a.s.sured, everything else will work itself out."

Her faith surprised him. He had not realized how unqualified it was.

"Did you ask the judge about it?" he inquired.

"Yes; just before I came in here--after Berne's collapse. I felt so helpless! But he tried to persuade me my imagination had deceived me; he said they had had no such scene. You know how gruff and hard Judge Wilton can be at times. I shouldn't choose him for a confidant."

"No; I reckon not. But we'll ask him now--if you don't mind."

Willis, the butler, answered the bell, and gave information: Judge Wilton had left Sloanehurst half an hour ago and had gone to the Randalls'. He had asked for Miss Sloane, but, learning that she was engaged, had left his regrets, saying he would come in tomorrow, after the adjournment of court.

"He's on the bench tomorrow at the county-seat," Lucille explained the message. "He always divides his time between us and the Randalls when he comes down from Fairfax for his court terms. He told me this morning he'd come back to us later in the week."

"On second thought," Hastings said, "that's better. I'll talk to him alone tomorrow--about this thing, this inexplicable thing: a judge taking it upon himself to deceive the sheriff even! But," he softened the sternness of his tone, "he must have a reason, a better one than I can think of now." He smiled. "And I'll report to you, when he's told me."

"I'm glad it's tomorrow," she said wearily. "I--I'm tired out."

On his way back to Washington, the old man reflected: "Now, she'll persuade Sloane to do the sensible thing--talk." Then, to bolster that hope, he added a stern truth: "He's got to. He can't gag himself with a pretended illness forever!"

At the same time the girl he had left in the music room wept again, saying over and over to herself, in a despair of doubt: "Not that! Not that! I couldn't tell him that. I told him enough. I know I did. He wouldn't have understood!"

XII

HENDRICKS REPORTS

In his book-lined, "loosely furnished" apartment Sunday afternoon Hastings whittled prodigiously, staring frequently at the flap of the grey envelope with the intensity of a crystal-gazer. Once or twice he p.r.o.nounced aloud possible meanings of the symbols imprinted on the sc.r.a.p of paper.

"'--edly de--,'" he worried. "That might stand for 'repeatedly demanded'

or 'repeatedly denied' or 'undoubtedly denoted' or a hundred---- But that 'Pursuit!' is the core of the trouble. They put the pursuit on him, sure as you're knee-high to a hope of heaven!"

The belief grew in him that out of those pieces of words would come solution of his problem. The idea was born of his remarkable instinct.

Its positiveness partook of superst.i.tion--almost. He could not shake it off. Once he chuckled, appreciating the apparent absurdity of trying to guess the criminal meaning, the criminal intent, back of that writing.