Page:Richard Marsh--The goddess a demon.djvu/164

152 "What other means?"

"I shall confess."

"But I thought you said you didn't do it."

"Nor did I; nor did she. If Symonds must have a victim, better I than she. To go to the gallows for her sake would be heaven well won."

Hume stared. I might have been shaking him again, his breath came so hardly.

"What—do you mean?"

"My good Hume, don't you be afraid for Miss Moore. I assure you she's in no danger."

"You say you only saw her for the first time last night."

"But that's a century ago. A myriad things have taken place since, so now it's just as if I'd known her all my life."

He kept his head averted, looking at me sideways; it was the first time he had shown an indisposition to meet me face to face.

"It's like that? I see." He drew in his lips to moisten them. "A case of the world well lost for her."

"You've hit it, Hume."

"Suppose, for illustration's sake, that this and that were fitted together so as to make it seem—only seem, you understand—that you actually did kill Lawrence, what then?"

"I don't know what it is, but, in this instance, something seems to be warping your natural