She was dazed, I think. She made no effort to free her arm, but she
put her other hand to her heart unexpectedly, and I saw that she was
profoundly shocked. I led her, unprotesting, to a deck-chair, and
put her down in it; and still she had not spoken: She lay back and
closed her eyes. She was too strong to faint; she was superbly
healthy. But she knew as well as I did what that key meant, and she
had delivered it into my hands. As for me, I was driven hard that
night; for, as I stood there looking down at her, she held out her
hand to me, palm up.
"Please!" she said pleadingly. "What does it mean to you, Leslie?
We were kind to you, weren't we? When you were ill, we took you on,
my sister and I, and now you hate us."
"Hate you!"
"He didn't know what he was doing. He wasn't sane. No sane man
kills--that way. He had a revolver, if he had wanted--Please
give me that key!"
"Some one will suffer. Would you have the innocent suffer with
the guilty?"
"If they cannot prove it against any one--"
"They may prove it against me."
"You!"
"I was in the after house," I said doggedly. "I was the one to
raise an alarm and to find the bodies. You do not know anything
about me. I am--'Elsa's jail-bird'!"
"Who told you that?"
"It does not matter--I know it.
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