so all the more, if you knew how kind he can be and what solicitude
he shows for all about him. But I can not get over the facts. They all
point, it seems to me, straight in one direction."

"All? You heard what was said in this room--I saw it in your eye--how
the man, who surprised the steward in his own room last night, heard him
talking of love and death in connection with Mrs. Fairbrother. 'To
kiss what I hate! It is almost as bad as to kill what I love'--he said
something like that."

"Yes, I heard that. But did he mean that he had been her actual slayer?
Could you convict him on those words?"

"Well, we shall find out. Then, as to Wellgood's part in the little
business, you choose to consider that it took place at the time
the stone fell from Mr. Grey's hand. What proof have you that the
substitution you believe in was not made by him? He could easily have
done it while crossing the room to Mr. Grey's side."

"Inspector!" Then hotly, as the absurdity of the suggestion struck
me with full force: "He do this! A waiter, or as you think, Mr.
Fairbrother's steward, to be provided with so hard-to-come-by an article
as this counterpart of a great stone? Isn't that almost as incredible a
supposition as any I have myself presumed to advance?"

"Possibly, but the affair is full of incredibilities, the greatest of
which, to my mind, is the persistence with which you, a kind-hearted
enough little woman, persevere in ascribing the deepest guilt to one you
profess to admire and certainly would be glad to find innocent of any
complicity with a great crime."

I felt that I must justify myself.

"Mr. Durand has had no such consideration shown him," said I.

"I know, my child, I know; but the cases differ. Wouldn't it be well for
you to see this and be satisfied with the turn which things have
taken, without continuing to insist upon involving Mr. Grey in your
suspicions?"

A smile took off the edge of this rebuke, yet I felt it keenly; and
only the confidence I had in his fairness as a man and public official
enabled me to say:

"But I am talking quite confidentially. And you have been so good to me,
so willing to listen to all I had to say, that I can not help but speak
my whole mind. It is my only safety valve. Remember how I have to sit in
the presence of this man with my thoughts all choked up. It is killing
me. But I think I should go back content if you will listen to one more
suggestion I have to make. It is my