..
No one else had read it. There was an explicit assurance on the point.
The Chelsea landlady had no idea that such a statement was in existence;
she would certainly have destroyed it if she had known; and further
written details convinced Langholm that the woman would never speak of
her own accord. There were strange sidelights on the feelings which the
young Italian had inspired in an unlikely breast; a mother could have
done no more to shield him. On the night of the acquittal, for example,
when he was slowly recovering in her house, it had since come to the
writer's knowledge that this woman had turned Mrs. Minchin from her door
with a lying statement as to his whereabouts. This he mentioned to
confirm his declaration that he always meant to tell the truth to
Rachel, that it was his first resolve in the early stages of his
recovery, long before he knew of her arrest and trial, and that this
woman was aware of that resolve as of all else. But he doubted whether
she could be made to speak, though he hoped that for his sake she would.
And Langholm grinned with set teeth as he turned back to this passage:
he would be diabolically safe.
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