"Mr. Salter, Agnes Wilt has no heart. She was a step-niece of the late Mrs. Zane--her brother's daughter. The girl's father was a poor professional man, and died soon after his child was born, followed at no great distance to the grave by his widow. While a child, Agnes was cold and subtle. She professed to love me--that was the understanding in our childhood. She has forgotten me as she has forgotten many other men. But she is beautiful, and I want to marry her. You can help me."
"What do you want with a cold and calculating woman?" wrote Duff Salter stiffly. "What do you want particularly with such a dangerous woman--a demon, as you indicate?"
"I want to save her soul, and retrieve her from wickedness. Upon my word, old man, that's my only game. You see, to effect that object would set me up at once with the church people. I'm told that a little objection to my prospects in the governor's church begins to break out. If I can marry Agnes Wilt, she will recover her position in Kensington, and make me more welcome in families. I don't mind telling you that I have been a little gay."
"That's nothing," wrote Duff Salter smilingly. "So were the sons of Eli."
"Correct!" retorted Calvin. "I need a taming down, and only matrimony can do it. Now, with your aid I can manage it. Miss Wilt does not fancy me. She can be made to do so, however, by two causes."
"Her fears and her avarice. I propose to bring this murder close home to her. If not a principal in it, she is an undoubted accessory after the fact. Andrew Zane paid her a visit the night the dead bodies were discovered in the river."
"Perfectly. I have had a detective on his track; too late to arrest the rascal, but the identity of a sailor man who penetrated into the house by the coal-hole is established by the discovery of the clothing he exchanged for that disguise--it was Andrew Zane. Concealment of that fact from the law will make her an accessory."
"Jericho! Jericho!" sneezed Duff Salter, but with a pale face, and said:
"That fact established would be serious; but it would be a gratuitous and vile act for you, who profess to love her."
"It is love that prompts me--love and pain! A divine anger, I may call it. I propose to make myself her rescuer afterward, and establish myself in her gratitude and confidence. You are to help me do this by watching the house from the inside."