"The embroidery in blue silk repeats the initials of your name." "And you found it in the field, where the motor car was stranded?" "I did, concealed in a hedge." "Where I concealed it?" "I don't say that." Gertrude stepped back and clutched at her breast. "Don't you believe that I am the woman who stole your car?" "No, I don't." "Don't you believe that I murdered Anne for the sake of the eye?" "No, I don't." "But on what ground"--she flung abroad her arms--"do you believe me to be innocent?" "I love you." "You love me," she repeated mechanically. I rose, still holding the cloak in my arms, and spoke vehemently. "Of course you must have seen for days that I love you. I came here because I fell in love with your photograph, and because I found this." I shook the cloak. "Yes! Can you not understand that I desired to save you." "To save me. From what?" "From arrest. Had anyone but myself found the cloak you would have been in prison long, long ago. But I told no one about my discovery. I hid the cloak in my portmanteau and came here to seek an explanation. I knew that you would be able to exculpate yourself." "Then you needed an explanation?" she asked in low tones. "Only that I might learn how to save you. I needed no explanation to assure me that you are innocent. For a moment I had my doubts, when Miss Destiny spoke to me, yesterday----" Gertrude interrupted with a cry and the scarlet blood flushed her cheeks swiftly. "Aunt Julia has been speaking to you?" "I have been speaking to Aunt Julia. Listen. I saw long ago that your aunt was not your friend, and I feared lest she should make mischief. I therefore called to see her yesterday, so that I might learn how much she knows. She told me----" "I know what she told you," interrupted Gertrude again, and flung back her head; "she came to me this morning, as I explained, and said all manner of dreadful things." "Such as----?" "I shall tell you, so that you may see I place myself entirely in your hands, Mr. Vance. Aunt Julia declared that I was at Mootley on the evening of the murder; that the hat-pin with which Anne was stabbed belonged to me; and that she saw my white cloak on the lady who drove the motor car, whom she believed to be myself escaping. She threatened to tell the police all these things unless I gave her half of the fifty thousand pounds. As if I could--as if I could!" wailed Gertrude, dropping into her seat. "I do not know where it is." "Why not learn from the glass eye?" She looked up astonished. "I have not got the glass eye." I stared in my turn. "Listen, Miss Monk. In the face of what you have told me, and of what your aunt has said, I believe that you are innocent." "Thank God for that," she muttered. "I could not have endured an accusation from you."