"I am counsel for Mr. Swain, Miss Vaughan,
and I have come to you, hoping that your story would help to clear him."
"Oh, I wish it might!" she cried.
"You know Mr. Swain cut his wrist as he came over the wall that night?"
"Yes, he told me. He didn't know it was bleeding, at first; then he
felt the blood on his hand, and I wrapped his wrist in my
handkerchief."
"Was it this handkerchief?" asked Goldberger, and took from his pocket
the blood-stained square and handed it to her.
She took it with a little shiver, looked at it, and passed it back to him.
"Yes," she said; "that is it."
Then she sat upright, her clenched hands against her breast, staring
at us with starting eyes.
"I remember now!" she gasped. "I remember now! I saw it--a blotch of
red--lying on the floor beside my father's chair! How did it get
there, Mr. Lester? Had he been there? Did he follow us?" She stopped
again, as she saw the look in Goldberger's eyes, and then the look in
mine. With a long, indrawn breath of horror, she cowered back into the
chair, shaking from head to foot. "Oh, what have I done!" she moaned.
"What have I done?"
There could be no question as to what she had done, I told myself,
bitterly: she had added another link to the chain of evidence about
her lover.
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