“Because I was thinking of _him_. Because I was terrified for _him_. He had left the house the morning before in a half-maddened condition and had not come back to sleep or eat since. I did not know what a man so outraged in every sacred feeling of love and honor might be tempted to do. I thought of suicide. I remembered the old house and how he had said, ‘I don’t believe her. I don’t believe she ever did so cold-blooded an act, or that any such dreadful machinery is in that house. I never shall believe it till I have seen and handled it myself. It is a nightmare, Cora. We are insane.’ I thought of this, sirs, and when I went into her room, to change the place of the little note in the book, I went to his bureau drawer, not to look for the pistol—I did not think of that then,—but to see if the keys of the Moore house were still there. I knew that they were kept in this drawer, for I had been present in the room when they were brought in after the wedding. I had also been short-sighted enough to conclude that if they were gone it was he who had taken them. They were gone, and that was why I flew immediately from the house to the old place in Waverley Avenue. I was concerned for Mr. Jeffrey! I feared to find him there, demented or dead.” “But you had no key.” “No. Mr. Jeffrey had taken one of them and my sister the other. But the lack of a key or even of a light—for the missing candles were not taken by me[1]—could not keep me at home after I was once convinced that he had gone to this dreadful house. If I could not get in I could at least hammer at the door or rouse the neighbors. Something must be done. I did not think what; I merely flew.” [1] We afterwards found that these candles were never delivered at the house at all; that they had been placed in the wrong basket and left in a neighboring kitchen. “Did you know that the house had two keys?” “Not then.” “But your sister did?” “Probably.” “And finding the only key, as you supposed, gone, you flew to the Moore house?” “Immediately.” “And now what else?” “I found the door unlocked.” “That was done by Mrs. Jeffrey?” “Yes, but I did not think of her then.” “And you went in?” “Yes; it was all dark, but I felt my way till I came to the gilded pillars.” “Why did you go there?” “Because I felt—I knew—if he were anywhere in that house he would be _there!_” “And why did you stop?” Her voice rose above its usual quiet pitch in shrill protest: