Jessica's wide eyes fastened on his as though to search his secret soul. "I will tell it all," she said, "then you will understand." The bishop drew a chair close, but her gaze did not waver from the face on the cushions--the face which she must read! As she told the broken tale the car was still, save for the labored, irregular breathing of the prostrate man, and the muffled roar that penetrated the walls, a multitudinous, elfin din. Once the swinging canary broke forth into liquid warbling, as though in all the world were no throe of body or dolor of mind. In that telling Jessica's mind traversed wastes of alternate certainty and doubt, as she hung upon the look of the man who listened--a look that merged slowly into a fearful understanding. Hugh understood now! Jessica had believed him to be her husband, and she believed so still. And Harry did not intend to tell. He was safe ... safe! In the reaction from his fear, Hugh felt sick and faint. The bishop had been listening in some anxiety, both for her and for his charge. There was a strained intensity in her manner now that betokened almost unbalance--so it seemed to him. The side-lights he had had of Hugh's career led him to believe him incapable of such a self-sacrifice as her tale recited. A strange power there was in woman's love! "You see," she ended, "that is why I know he is innocent. _You_ can not"--her eyes held Hugh's--"_you_ can not doubt it, can you?" Hugh's tongue wet his parched lips. A tremor ran through him. He did not answer. Jessica started to her feet. Self-possession was falling from her; she was fighting to seize the vital knowledge that evaded her. She held out her hand--in the palm lay a small emblem of gold. "By this cross," she cried with desperate earnestness, "I ask you for the truth. It is his life or death--Hugh's life or death! He did not kill Doctor Moreau. _Who did?_" Hugh had shrunk back on the couch, his face ghastly. "I know nothing--nothing!" he stammered. "Do not ask me!" The bishop had risen in alarm; he thought her hysterical. "Jessica! Jessica!" he exclaimed. He threw his arm about her and led her from the couch. "You don't know what you are saying. You are beside yourself." He forced her into the drawing-room and made her sit down. She was tense and quivering. The cross fell from her hand and he stooped and picked it up. "Try to calm yourself," he said, "to think of other things for a few moments. This little cross--I wonder how you come to have it? I gave it to Sanderson last May to commemorate his ordination." He twisted it open. "See, here is the date, May twenty-eighth--that was the day I gave it to him."