"You are not serious, Mrs. Grent?" cried the detective, much amazed. "By our Saints, I talk true!" retorted the Spanish woman, her eyes flashing brilliantly. "Sir, I will speak! They are against me; Maria and this Lydia." "Ah!" muttered Torry quickly, "I wonder if it is Miss Hargone who is being screened by Donna Maria and Vass." He raised his voice and addressed Mrs. Grent: "Why should they be against you, madam?" "Lydia for her wickedness; Maria being governed by that evil one. I did not speak at Wray House; I saw you not as they would have told me--'Ah how foolish! Ah! how wrong!' So, sir here I come to tell you that my husband was killed by Lydia Hargone. Smiling traitress!" "How do you know?" asked Torry sharply. "I am sure, I swear!" Donna Inez crossed herself rapidly. "By the Holy Mother, I swear!" "Have you any proof?" "No; but listen. I will tell. I love my husband, he loves me. We were happy as angels in Paradise till came that evil Lydia. Then she make the eyes, the smiles at my husband. Oh, yes; for why--because she poor, she wish money, much money. My husband, poor fool, he smile on her, he angry with me, yet good wife I was this long time--ah, sir, ten year. This old man, he love her, and I--ah, it so suffocates me to speak it--I am thought not of, I am neglected. Yes, yes, it is true. I--I--I--Inez Sandoval, was left for her--perfiding one," and in her rage Mrs. Grent shook her two fists in the air. "Why did you not turn her out of the house?" asked Torry. "I? Who am I?" replied Donna Inez with a bitter laugh. "No one--a wife not loved. I rage, I speak, I implore for her to go; but no, no, no. My husband he say: 'Stay! stay!' and the accursed one stops. Then I say: 'You go, or I depart for Peru. Ah!'" "So Miss Hargone left Wray House?" said Torry, seeing that Donna Inez was too overcome by passion to speak further. "Yes, she leave," continued Mrs. Grent, when she recovered her speech. "I say: 'you go, or I go,' so she go. But I know she met my fool husband in this city." "Ha!" exclaimed Torry, recollecting the visit of Lydia to the Duke-street rooms on the fatal Saturday. "Yes, yes; and I swear she fly with him. He say: 'I go to Italy.' Oh, yes, I know that, but not alone; she go also. My husband meet her to fly. Then she see he too old and kill him by her lover." "What--Mr. Blake?" "No, no; she say she love him, but that one big lie. She love young Leighbourne." "Impossible!" cried Torry, utterly taken aback. "I tell you, yes. Blake think she love him; but no, she love Mister Leighbourne. Oh, yes, I swear it. You see that wretch and speak." "Yes, I'll see her, madam; but whether she loved your husband, or loves Leighbourne or Blake, I'm sure she did not commit the murder." "Ki! Ki Ki!" cried Donna Inez derisively, and took her leave. CHAPTER XVI THE TURQUOISE RING