"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.
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