I will sell this place
to-morrow. We will go right away somewhere else."
"And then the same thing will happen there! Is that all you can suggest,
you who married me after hearing with your own ears every scrap of
evidence that they could bring against me?"
"Have you anything better to suggest yourself, Rachel?"
"I have," she answered, looking him full and sternly in the face, in
the now forgotten presence of their three guests. "Find out who _is_
guilty, if you really want people to believe that I am not!"
Steel did not start, though there came a day when one at least of the
listening trio felt honestly persuaded that he had; as a matter of fact,
his lips came more closely together, while his eyes searched those of
his wife with a wider stare than was often seen in them, but for two or
three seconds at most, before dropping in perplexity to the floor.
"How can I, Rachel?" her husband asked quietly, indeed gently, yet with
little promise of acquiescence in his tone. "I am not a detective, after
all."
But that was added for the sake of adding something, and was enough to
prove Steel ill at ease, to the wife who knew him as no man ever had.
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