"I wish to God _I_ could!" she retorted, still speaking in a low, fierce whisper, so that the children in the next room should not hear. "But though we don't know, we have our suspicions. I know what mine are. What are yours? Tell me, if you dare!" He did not answer her. In the presence of misfortune so undeserved, of suffering so keen, how could he breathe a word against her husband? "No, you do not dare," she continued. "You haven't the courage to say to my face that you believe my poor husband to be guilty of the crime; but you can say so behind my back, you can go about poisoning people's minds against him, and then come to me smiling in pretended friendship. Oh, Mr. Remington," she said, with a remorseful sob, and her changeful moods showed how her heart was torn, "I would not have believed it of you. You make us trust you, you make us love you, and then you turn against us. See here!" She pulled up the sleeve of her gown, and bared her emaciated arm to his pitying gaze. "As this is, so my whole body is, and my soul is on the rack. You have seen us in our poverty, you know the state to which we have been driven, you have witnessed how we live. Is it the work of an honest man to oppress and malign us?" "It would be the work of a coward," he answered, "if I had done a hundredth part of what you bring against me. I have done you no wrong, no injustice. I think I know who has instilled these thoughts into your mind, but I will not ask you for his name. Doubtless he has laid the seal of silence on your lips----" "He has not," she interrupted. "What he has said to me he would say to you if you stood before him." "I think not," said Dick. "He would. He has been kind and generous to us; if it had not been for him my children would have starved." "I would have done as much if I could have afforded it," said Dick, with set teeth. "Has it not crossed your mind, Mrs. Death, that you are being deceived?" "How, deceived?" she asked, and despite the warmth of her championship there was doubt in her face. "In being led to believe that those who are your friends are your enemies?" "I speak as I find." "No," said Dick, firmly, "you speak from ideas which have been put into your head, heaven knows for what purpose. What that man's motive may be----" "Yes, yes, yes," she interrupted again. "Motive, motive, motive. I've heard enough of motive. What is yours, Mr. Remington? Who is more deeply interested in the death of Mr. Samuel Boyd, who is more directly connected with it, who has more to gain from it, than you and your friend. You speak of motive. What motive brings you here?" "I have told you." "You have not told me," she said, violently. "You come to seek information about my poor husband." "Yes," he admitted, "partly." "And," she said, very slowly, "to cast suspicion upon him, if the poor dear is alive, and so avert it from yourself and Mr. Reginald Boyd."