"I suppose, Fanny, you will tell me something more of him."
"That is why I asked you to come, sir. If you're to do any good in this dreadful affair, you must know as much as I do about him."
"Very well, Fanny." I referred again to the first entry in the diary. "After stating that your husband went out with Devlin at nine o'clock in the morning, you say that he returned alone at six o'clock in the evening, and that he did not stir out of the house again on that night."
"I see that you have made a record of the time Lemon went to bed and the time he rose next morning."
"To which, sir, I am ready to take my gospel oath."
"Supposing your gospel oath to be necessary."
I stared at her, beginning to doubt whether she was sane; but there was nothing in her face to justify my suspicion. The expression I saw on it was one of solemn, painful, intense earnestness.
I turned again to the concluding words of the first entry, and read them aloud:
"Devlin did not come home all night. I locked the street-door myself, and put up the chain. I went down at seven in the morning, when Lemon was asleep, and the chain was up. I went to Devlin's room, the second floor front, and Devlin was not there!"
"That's true, sir. I can take my gospel oath of that."
"Fanny," I said, with the little book in my hand, closed, but keeping my forefinger between the leaves upon which the first entry was made, "I cannot go any farther until you tell me what all this means."
"After you've finished what I wrote, sir," was her reply, "I'll make a clean breast of it, and tell you everything, or as much of it as I can remember, from the time you saw me last--a good many years ago, wasn't it, sir?--up to this very day."
I thought it best to humour her, and I looked through the remaining entries. They were all of the same kind. Mr. Lemon rose in the morning at such a time; he had breakfast at such a time; he went out at such a time, with or without Devlin; he came home at such a time, with or without Devlin; and so on, and so on. It was a peculiar feature in these entries that Lemon never went out or came home without Devlin's name being mentioned.
I handed the book back to her; she took it irresolutely, and asked,
"Perhaps, sir, but the time I wrote it; that is what I mean."