No one answered her. For the first time in her presence, the minds of those who faced her were with another than herself. The bride! the unhappy bride—no maiden but a wife! nay, a wife one minute, a widow the next, and then again a newly-wedded bride before the husband lying below was cold! What wonder that she shrank when her new-made bridegroom’s lips approached her own! or that their honeymoon was a disappointment! Or that the shadow which fell upon her on that evil day never left her till she gave herself wholly up to its influence and returned to die on the spot made awful by her own crime.
Before any of us were quite ready to speak, a tap at the door told us that Durbin had arrived with Mr. Jeffrey. When they had been admitted and the latter saw Miss Tuttle standing there, he, too, seemed to realize that a turn had come in their affairs, and that courage rather than endurance was the quality most demanded from him. Facing the small group clustered in the dismal hall fraught with such unutterable associations, he earnestly prayed:
“Do not keep me in suspense. Why am I summoned here?”
The reply was as grave as the occasion warranted.
“You are summoned to learn the murderous secret of these old walls, and who it was that last made use of it. Do you feel inclined to hear these details from my lips, or are you ready to state that you already know the means by which so many persons, in times past as well as in times present, have met death here? We do not require you to answer us.”
“I know the means,” he allowed, recognizing without doubt that the crisis of crises had come, and that denial would be worse than useless.
“Then it only remains for us to acquaint you with the identity of the person who last pressed the fatal spring. But perhaps you know that, too?”
“I—” He paused; words were impossible to him; and in that pause his eyes flashed helplessly in the direction of Miss Tuttle.
But the major was quick on his feet and was already between him and that lady. This act forced from Mr. Jeffrey’s lips the following broken sentence:
“I should—like—you—to—tell—me.” Great gasps came with each heavily spoken word.
“Perhaps this morsel of lace will do it in a gentler manner than I could,” responded the district attorney, opening his hand, in which lay the scrap of lace that, an hour or so before, I had plucked away from the boarding of that fatal closet.