"Not so loud!" he whispered. "She will hear you.""I have heard you both," I said. "You need have no fear, Mr. Dexter, of speaking before me. I know that my husband had a first wife, and I know how miserably she died. I have read the Trial.""You have read the life and death of a martyr!" cried Miserrimus Dexter. He suddenly wheeled his chair my way; he bent over me;his eyes filled with tears. "Nobody appreciated her at her true value," he said, "but me. Nobody but me! nobody but me!"Mrs. Macallan walked away impatiently to the end of the room.
"When you are ready, Valeria, I am," she said. "We cannot keep the servants and the horses waiting much longer in this bleak place."I was too deeply interested in leading Miserrimus Dexter to pursue the subject on which he had touched to be willing to leave him at that moment. I pretended not to have heard Mrs. Macallan.
I laid my hand, as if by accident, on the wheel-chair to keep him near me.
"You showed me how highly you esteemed that poor lady in your evidence at the Trial," I said. "I believe, Mr. Dexter, you have ideas of your own about the mystery of her death?"He had been looking at my hand, resting on the arm of his chair, until I ventured on my question. At that he suddenly raised his eyes, and fixed them with a frowning and furtive suspicion on my face.
"How do you know I have ideas of my own?" he asked, sternly.
"I know it from reading the Trial," I answered. "The lawyer who cross-examined you spoke almost in the very words which I have just used. I had no intention of offending you, Mr. Dexter."His face cleared as rapidly as it had clouded. He smiled, and laid his hand on mine. His touch struck me cold. I felt every nerve in me shivering under it; I drew my hand away quickly.
"I beg your pardon," he said, "if I have misunderstood you. I_have_ ideas of my own about that unhappy lady. "He paused and looked at me in silence very earnestly. "Have _you_ any ideas?"he asked. "Ideas about her life? or about her death?"I was deeply interested; I was burning to hear more. It might encourage him to speak if I were candid with him. I answered, "Yes.""Ideas which you have mentioned to any one?" he went on.
"To no living creature," I replied--"as yet.""This very strange!" he said, still earnestly reading my face.
"What interest can _you_ have in a dead woman whom you never knew? Why did you ask me that question just now? Have you any motive in coming here to see me?"I boldly acknowledged the truth. I said, "I have a motive.""Is it connected with Eustace Macallan's first wife?""It is."
"With anything that happened in her lifetime?""No."
"With her death?"
"Yes."
He suddenly clasped his hands with a wild gesture of despair, and then pressed them both on his head, as if he were struck by some sudden pain.