But the major was quick on his feet and was already between him and
that lady. This act forced from Mr. Jeffrey's lips the following
broken sentence:
"I should - like - you - to - tell - me." Great gasps came with
each heavily spoken word.
"Perhaps this morsel of lace will do it in a gentler manner than
I could," responded the district attorney, opening his hand, in
which lay the scrap of lace that, an hour or so before, I had
plucked away from the boarding of that fatal closet.
Mr. Jeffrey eyed it and understood. His hands went up to his face
and he swayed to the point of falling. Miss Tuttle came quickly
forward.
"Oh!" she moaned, as her eyes fell on the little white shred. "The
providence of God has found us out. We have suffered, labored and
denied in vain."
"Yes," came in dreary echo from the man none of us had understood
till now; "so great a crime could not be hid. God will have
vengeance. What are we that we should hope to avert it by any act
or at any cost?"
The major, with his eyes fixed piercingly on this miserable man,
replied with one pregnant, sentence:
"Then you forced your wife to suicide?"
"No," he began; but before another word could follow, Miss Tuttle,
resplendent in beauty and beaming with new life, broke in with the
fervid cry:
"You wrong him and you wrong her by such a suggestion.
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