“Your hope is on a safe foundation. There is one thing which you might do--keep your own counsel. Don’t tell all the world that you have a visitor; and, in particular, tell no one how that visitor came to you.” “I’d rather she never had come. I--I’m beginning to wish that I’d never taken her in.” “Don’t say that, Mrs. Peddar. You will find that it was not the worst action of your life when you took that young girl, when she had just escaped, by the very skin of her teeth, unless I am mistaken--from things unspeakable, from the very gates of hell, under the shadow of your wing.” Mrs. Peddar shook her head and she sighed. “Poor thing! Whatever happens, and I tremble when I think of what may be going to happen to her and to us, and to every one--poor young thing!” CHAPTER VI. THE DOCTOR ACCUSES I found it impossible to accept the conclusion to which it all pointed. I had locked the door of my bedroom, gone to the wardrobe, taken out that plum-coloured cloak. I had rolled it up as tightly as I could; the blood with which it was soaked, as it dried, had glued the folds together. I had difficulty in tearing it open. An undesirable garment it finally appeared as I spread it out in front of me upon the bed, discoloured, stiff as cardboard, creased with innumerable creases. And the stiffness was horrible. When one reflected with what it had been stiffened, and how, and when, and associated with the reflection that fair-faced girl, with truth in her voice and innocence in her eyes, one wondered. That she had been in Edwin Lawrence’s room at the very moment when the murder was taking place seemed clear. What had been her errand? What part had she played in the tragedy? Why, instead of giving an alarm, had she sought refuge in flight? In the answer to this latter question would, I felt persuaded, be found the key to the riddle. What she had witnessed had acted on her like a bolt from heaven; the shock of it had robbed her of her senses on the instant. With the scientific term which would describe her condition I was not acquainted; it was some sort of neurosis, involving, at least for the time, the entire loss of memory. If she could only describe what she had witnessed, her innocence would be established. Such was my personal conviction; but, at present, it was my conviction only. The material evidence pointed the other way. Time pressed; danger threatened. If facts, as they were known to me, became known to others, an eager policeman, anxious to fasten guilt on some one, might arrest her on a capital charge. Apart from the question of contaminating hands, what might not be the effect, on one already in so pitiful a condition, of so hideous an accusation.