“So have I,” she sighed in tones so low he could scarcely hear them.

“Oh, you, you also,” he muttered, almost suffocating.

“Yes,” she said.  “Yes—­perhaps the same as yours.  My stepfather,” she breathed, “Mr. Deede Dawson.”

He watched her closely and moodily, but he did not speak.

“I was afraid—­at first,” she whispered.  “But I was wrong—­quite wrong.  It is as certain as it can be that he was in London at the time.”

From his pocket Dunn took out the handkerchief of hers that he had found near the body of the dead man.

“Is this yours?” he asked.

“Yes,” she answered.  “Yes, where did you get it?”

He did not answer, but he lifted his hands one after the other, and put them on her shoulder, with the fingers outspread to encircle her throat.  It seemed to him that when she acknowledged the ownership of the handkerchief she acknowledged also the perpetration of the deed, and he became a little mad, and he had it in his mind that the slightest, the very slightest, pressure of his fingers on that soft, round throat would put it for ever out of her power to do such things again.  Then for himself death would be easy and welcome, and there would be an end to all these doubts and fears that racked him with anguish beyond bearing.

“What are you going to do?” she asked, making no attempt to resist or escape.

Ever so slightly the pressure of his hands upon her throat strengthened and increased.  A very little more and the lovely thing of life he watched would be broken and cold for ever.  Her eyes were steady, she showed no sign of fear, she stood perfectly still, her hands loosely clasped together before her.  He groaned, and his arms fell to his side, helpless.  Without the slightest change of expression, she said: 

“What were you going to do?”

“I don’t know,” he answered.  “Do you ever go mad?  I do, I think.  Perhaps you do too, and that explains it.  Do you know where Charley Wright is?”

“Yes,” she answered directly.  “Why?  Did you know him, then?”

“You know where he is now?” Dunn repeated.

She nodded quietly.

“I heard from him only last week,” she said.

“I am certainly mad or you are,” he muttered, staring at her with eyes in which such wonder and horror showed that it seemed there really was a touch of madness there.

“What is the matter?” she asked.

“You heard from him last week,” he said again, and again she answered: 

“Yes—­last week.  Why not?”

He leaned forward, and before she knew what he intended to do he kissed her pale, cool cheek.

Once more she stood still and immobile, her hands loosely clasped before her.  It might have been that he had kissed a statue, and her perfect stillness made him afraid.

“Ella,” he said.  “Ella.”

“Why did you do that?” she said, a little wildly now in her turn.  “It was not that you were going to do to me before.”