“My own common sense. I have seen your brother, and I have heard from him what was the errand which took you to Edwin Lawrence. I can understand how your mind was strained, and what a very little more was needed to make that strain too much. But that in what took place you did nothing of which you have cause to be ashamed, I am convinced.” “But she thinks I did it, and so does she; and--I’m not sure.” She pointed first to Miss Adair and then to Mrs. Peddar. “You’re dreaming. Miss Adair knows you too well to suppose the incredible.” “But she does think I did it. Don’t you?” In reply Miss Adair put her elbows on the table and her face on her hands, and burst into tears. “Bessie!” she cried. I was dumfounded. “You see. And she thinks so too. And that man, he thinks so; he wanted to lock me up. Will he--lock me up?” She asked the question with a little gasp, so expressive of loneliness and terror, that it cut me to the heart. I tried to speak with a confidence I did not feel. “The police are famous for their blunders. In cases such as this, if they had their way, they’d lock up every one they could lay their hands on. There’s one question I want to ask you before you go--was there no one else present in that room last night except you and Edwin Lawrence?” “Yes--you were there.” “I!” She said it with a directness which struck me as with a crowbar. “Yes, you were there. I thought, when I saw you sitting up in bed, in the moonlight, that I had seen your face before, and I’ve been thinking so all the time; and now it’s all come back to me--you were there. Don’t you remember that you came into the room?” She spoke with a touch of sudden excitement. Mrs. Peddar resented her words with unusual heat. “You wicked girl! To say such a thing, after all that he has done for you! You’ll be saying next that I was there.” I endeavoured to appease my enthusiastic partisan. “Gently, Mrs. Peddar. I am not at all sure that what Miss Moore says is not correct. I, too, suffered last night from dreams. I dreamed that I went to Edwin Lawrence’s rooms, and saw him murdered; whether I saw with the actual or the spiritual eye, I cannot tell; but, in any case, all that I did see was seen as in a glass darkly.” “Did you see me?” “I cannot be certain. I saw some one who I now believe to have been you.” “Did you see It?” “It?” “The--the creature--the dreadful thing!” “My vision was blurred; I saw nothing plain, it had all the indistinctness of a nightmare, but--I was oppressed by the consciousness of some hideous presence in the room. What was--the thing?” “I don’t know; I can’t think. I’m afraid to try! It did it all.” “Wasn’t it--a wild beast? It made a noise like one, or--was it my imagination?” “The dreadful noise! I’ve heard it ever since. I hear it all the time--I hear it now. Can’t you--hear it now?” She looked about her with frightened eyes.