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Chapter 26.

Mr. Grice explains himself.

I do not propose to enter into description of the mingled feelings aroused in me by this announcement.

As a drowning man, he said to live over in one terrible instant the events of a lifetime, so each word uttered in my hearing by Mary from her first introduction to me in her own room, on the morning of the Inquest to our final conversation, on the night of Mr. Clavering's call, swept in one wild phantasmagoria through my brain,

leaving me a gas at the signification, which her whole conduct seemed to acquire from the lured light which now fell upon it.

I perceive that I have pulled down an avalanche of doubts about your ears, exclaimed my companion, from the height of his calm superiority, you never thought of this possibility, then yourself.

Do not ask me what I have thought. I only know I will never believe your suspicions true.

That however much Mary may have benefited by her uncle's death, she never had a hand in it, actual hand, I mean.

And what makes you so sure of this? And what makes you so sure of the contrary? It is for you to prove, not for me to prove her innocence.

Ah, said Mr. Grice, in a slow sarcastic way. You recollect that principle of law, do you?

If I remember rightly, you have not always been so punctilious in regarding it, or wishing to have it regarded when the question was whether Mr. Clavering was the assassin or not.

But he is a man, it does not seem so dreadful to accuse a man of a crime, but a woman and such a woman, I cannot listen to it, it is horrible.

Nothing short of absolute confession on her part will ever make me believe Mary Levinworth, or any other woman committed this deed.

It was too cruel, too deliberate, to read the criminal records, broken Mr. Grice, but I was obstinate.

I do not care for the criminal records. All the criminal records in the world would never make me believe Eleanor perpetrated this crime.

Nor will I be less generous towards her cousin. Mary Levinworth is a faulty woman, but not a guilty one.

You are more lenient in your judgment of her than her cousin was, it appears.

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