"Are you sure you were in this house?" the girl asked, at length.
"Certain!" David exclaimed. "The walls, the pictures, the
furniture--all the same. I could swear to the place anywhere. Miss
Gates, if I cannot prove that I was here at the time I name, it is
likely to go very hard with me."
"You mean that a certain inconvenience--"
"Inconvenience! Do you call a charge of murder, or manslaughter at best,
inconvenient? Have you not seen the local papers? Don't you know that two
nights ago, during my absence from home, a strange man was practically
done to death in my conservatory? And during the time of the outrage, as
sure as Heaven is above us, I was in this room."
"I am sorry, but I am sure that you were not."
"Ah, you are going to disappoint me? And yet you know something. You
might have been the guiltiest of creatures yourself when I disclosed my
identity. No prisoner detected in some shameful crime ever looked more
guilty than you."
The girl stood there, saying nothing. Had she rang the bell and ordered
the footman to put him out of the house, Steel would have had no cause
for complaint.
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