"There's nothing more to say," said Lister, now deadly pale, and walked abruptly out of the dim room. Bella fell back in the chair and wept. All was over. CHAPTER VIII THE WITCH-WIFE The interview between the engaged lovers had been a strange one, and not the least strange part was the termination. Apparently, after hearing the description of the mysterious double given by Bella, her lover could have explained much--at least, she gathered this from the hints his broken conversation gave. After his departure, she sat weeping, until it struck her sensible nature how very foolish she was to waste time in idle regrets. Whether Cyril felt so mortally offended by her doubts as to regard the engagement at an end, she could not say. But after some thought she believed that her remarks had given him a clue which he had left thus abruptly to follow up. Sooner or later he would return to explain, and then all would be well between them. And in spite of his odd behaviour, she had one great consolation in knowing that he was innocent. His denial of guilt had been so strong; the _alibi_ he set forth was so easy of proof, and so impossible of invention, that she blamed herself sincerely for ever having doubted the young man. Nevertheless, considering the weird circumstances, and the fact of the likeness of the double--whomsoever he might be--to her lover, she could scarcely regard herself as having been foolish. Nine people out of ten would have made the same mistake, and would have harboured similar doubts. Certainly, seeing that she loved Cyril devotedly, she should have been the tenth; but in the hour of trial her faith had proved very weak. She tried to remind herself that she had never really believed him to be guilty. All the same, recalling the late conversation, she had to recognise that her words could have left very little doubt in Lister's mind as to the fact that she believed him to be a robber and an assassin. Well, if she had, surely she had been severely punished, as was only fair.