"Therefore to get the money into your clutches at once you killed him." "I did not. Who dares to say that I did?" "Simon Jedd will dare for one, when I examine him, and Mr. Spruce has already accused you, for another." Madame Alpenny jumped up in a fury. "Mistare Spruce!" she shouted, with a violent gesture. "That wicked beast! That evil one! He accuse me?" "Of murdering my uncle? Yes. It is due to his information that I am here, as he can help me to prove your guilt." "My guilt!" Madame Alpenny snapped her fingers, with a crimson face. "Oh, that for my guilt! I am innocent." "Naturally you say so. But can you prove your innocence?" "I can." She said this with so much assurance that Hench was staggered, and began to wonder if he had made a mistake. "See you, that Mistare Spruce make me confess to him and then betrays me to you. Beast!" "You should not have trusted him," said Owain coldly. "Any one can see that he is a bad lot. I wonder that a woman of your penetration, Madame, behaved in so rash a manner." "Rash! Ah, but I did not behave rash. He forced me to speak. He knew so much that I had to tell him all." "About the murder?" "I am innocent of the murder," cried the woman, throwing back her head in a fierce way. "Hear what I speak, and then you shall see. Mistare Spruce was in this room when I told how I met your father. Is it not so?" "Yes," agreed Hench. "He heard the whole conversation." "I said," went on Madame Alpenny, "that there was a mystery about you, and now you know what the mystery was. Mistare Spruce, wanting to make money out of you and thinking that I knew something--which I did--watched me as a cat a mouse. I went to Cookley saying that I had to go away to find an engagement for my daughter. Is it not so?" she asked again. "Yes. You were away for a few days and so was Spruce." "He followed me down to Cookley." "Are you sure?" asked Hench, wondering why the two sharp Jedd boys had not also seen the Nut. "He confessed to me. He saw me enter the Grange; he saw me come out and go into the wood to meet Monsieur Evans at the Gipsy Stile. He stole after me and listened. You understand? He listened and learned about the property coming to you; about the advertisement; about my desire that you should marry my daughter Zara." "Well?" asked Owain, when she stopped for want of breath. "Well,"--she made a dramatic gesture,--"and what follows. He said nothing, but he knew the paper in which the advertisement appeared--Monsieur Evans mentioned it at the stile--and learned about the meeting. He still said nothing, but after the tale of the murder appears in the paper he comes to me." "Yes? To accuse you; to blackmail you?" "Ah, but no. He said nothing of me being guilty. He declared that you went down to Cookley to meet your uncle." "How did he know?"