“It wasn’t that.” “What was it, then?” She hesitated, twisting her handkerchief round and round in her fingers. The solicitor moistened his lips with his tongue. “Your only hope, your one and only hope in this world, Mrs. Williams, is to speak the truth. I’m powerless to help you if you won’t be open. Don’t be afraid that everything you say now will come out in the police-court; it won’t necessarily be so at all--far from it. But I can judge of nothing unless I know every single thing.” “I’ll tell you,” said Elsie, white to the lips. “Why would you and Morrison not have gone away together? Were you afraid?” “We had no money.” “I see. Morrison’s pay was very small, and you had nothing but what your husband gave you?” “Yes.” “Whereas if you were a widow, you had reason to suppose that Williams would leave you comfortably provided for?” “Yes.” “Did it not occur to you, then, that his death would be a very convenient solution of the whole problem?” “Oh yes! How could I help thinking that?” “You not only thought it, Mrs. Williams, you said it, and you wrote it.” “I never----” The denial sprang from her quite instinctively. Mr. Cleaver put up his hand authoritatively. “Wait! Do you remember a conversation with a friend of yours, Miss Irene Tidmarsh, on the eighteenth of last October, when you made use of the words, ‘I wish to the Lord that Horace would do the decent thing or go West, and let me have a chance of happiness’?” Elsie was terrified at the precision with which her very words were quoted and the occasion known. “I can’t remember,” she gasped. “Mrs. Williams, you _must_ speak the truth. Remember that a great deal is known already, and banish any idea of false shame from your mind. This is a question of life and death to you: neither more nor less. If I know the truth from you, I can advise you as to the line you must take under cross-examination. Remember that it will be a terrible ordeal for you, and it’s essential that you should be properly prepared for it. And weight will be attached, without a doubt, to that conversation of yours with Miss Tidmarsh.” “But how will they know about it?” she sobbed, forgetting her previous denial. “Miss Tidmarsh will be called as a witness against you,” said Mr. Cleaver gravely. “We’ve got to account for those words of yours somehow, and what is more serious still--if anything could be more serious--we’ve got to keep out of sight, if we can, those damning letters of yours.” “What letters?” screamed Elsie, a new and unbearable horror clutching at her. “The letters, Mrs. Williams, that you have repeatedly written to Leslie Morrison during the past months.” “They’re burnt, they’re burnt!” shrieked Elsie. “He swore he’d burn them!”