"I did not imagine that I had a heart at all until I came here," Marion replied. She had not abated a jot of her sweetness of expression or angelic manner. "Then gradually I began to love you all. When I met my cousin Geoffrey I recognized the fact that I was a woman. "More than once I have been on the point of betraying myself to him. But the more passion for him filled my heart the worse I felt. I was going to kill you all off and keep Geoffrey for myself. If Vera had died he would have come to care for me in time. I know he would. "Then my mother came. I was not getting along fast enough for her. Her keen eyes saw into my breast and discovered my secret at once. For that reason she marked Geoffrey down for her next victim. I tried to warn him; I wrote him a letter. And I had to do him to death myself. It was I who cut the mast away; it was I who sawed the sculls. I was the girl in the blue dress." "Amazing," Geoffrey murmured. "To think of it! Marion, Marion!" There were tears in his eyes; he could not be angry with her. There were tears in the eyes of everybody. Vera was crying softly. And all the grief was as so many daggers in the heart of the unhappy girl. "Go on," she said. "Cry for me. Every look of pity and every sign of grief stings me to the quick. Perhaps I am mad; perhaps I am not responsible for my actions. But I swear that all the time I have been plotting against your lives I have cared for you. Only my training and my religion forced me on. Call me insane if you please, as you say of the fakir who sleeps upon a bed of sharp nails. I could explain all the mysteries----" "You need not," Ralph said. "I can do that in good time. From the first I knew you, from the first I have dogged you from room to room at night and frustrated your designs. Then came Tchigorsky, who finished the task for me. Need I say more?" Marion moved towards the door. The imploring look had gone from her face; her eyes had grown sad and hopeless. And yet in the face of her confession, in face of the knowledge of her crimes, not one of them had the slightest anger for her. "I am going," she said. "In the event of this happening, I had made my plans. It may be that I shall have to take my trial; it may be that I shall be spared. One thing you may be certain of--my mother will never stand in the dock." Ralph rose and slipped quietly from the room. "If she dies, if anything happens to her," Marion went on, "it may be possible to spare me. Nobody knows anything to my dishonor outside the family but Dr. Tchigorsky, and you can rely upon his silence. If my mother is no more there need be no scandal. Farewell, farewell to you all! Oh, if Heaven had been good to me, and sent me here as a little child, then what a happy life might have been mine!"