Clemency was silent, except for her sobs.

“Tell me,” said James.

“Don’t,” whispered Clemency.

“Tell me.”

Then Clemency let her other hand, which contained a moist little ball of handkerchief, fall.  She turned full upon him her tearful, swollen face.  “If you want to know what you know already,” said she, in a hard voice, “here it is.  She wasn’t my mother, but I loved her like one, and you killed her.”

CHAPTER XV

James sat as if turned to stone.  All in a second he realized what it must be.  He let Clemency’s hand go, and leaned back in his chair.  “What do you mean, Clemency?” he asked finally, but he realized how senseless the question was.  He knew perfectly well what she meant, and he knew perfectly well that he was utterly helpless before her accusation.

“You know,” said Clemency, still in her unnatural hard voice.  “You killed her.”

“How?”

“You know.  You gave her more morphine, and her heart was weak.  Emma overheard Uncle Tom say so, and that more morphine was dangerous.  She might have been alive to-day if it had not been for you.”

James sat staring at the girl.  She went on pitilessly.  “You did not see Emma that last time you came upstairs,” she said, “but she saw you.  She was standing in the door of her room, and she had no light.  She saw you and Mrs. Blair going away from her room, and she heard Mrs. Blair tell you she was dead.  You killed her.  I want nothing whatever to do with a murderer.”

James remembered that draught of cold air.  It must have come from the open door of Emma’s room at the end of the hall.  He understood that Emma could not have seen him coming upstairs, but that she had seen him with Mrs. Blair at the door of the sick-room, and had jumped at her conclusion.

“Emma knew when you went upstairs first,” said Clemency.  “You left her door a little ajar.  Emma saw you giving her a hypodermic.  And then when that did not kill her you gave her another.  Uncle Tom did not know.  He must never know, for it would kill him, but you did kill her.”

James was silent for a moment.  He realized the impossibility of clearing himself from the accusation unless he told the whole truth and implicated Doctor Gordon.  Finally he said, miserably enough, “You don’t know how horribly she was suffering, dear.  You don’t know what torments she would have had to suffer.”

He knew when he said that that he incriminated himself.  Clemency retorted immediately, “You don’t know.  I have heard Uncle Tom say that nobody can ever know.  She might have gotten well.  Anyway, you killed her.”  With that Clemency sprang up and ran out of the room, and James heard her sob.

As for himself, he remained where he was for a long time.  He never knew how long.  He felt numb.  He realized himself to be in a gulf of misunderstanding, from which he could not be extricated, even for the sake of Clemency.  It seemed to him again that he must go away, but he remembered Gordon’s pitiful plea to him to remain.  Finally he went into his room, to find that Emma, in her absurd malice, had left only the coverlid on the bed.  She had stripped it of the sheets and blankets.  He lay down with his clothes on and passed a sleepless night.