“Thank God, Una,” Jack cried, “you remember it now even better than I do!”
“Remember it!” I answered, holding my brow with my hands to keep the flood of thought from bursting it to fragments. “Remember it! Why, it comes back to me like waves of fire and burns me. I remember every word, every act, every gesture. I lifted my head slowly, Jack, and looked over the screen at him. In the twilight, I saw him there—the man I called my father—holding the bottle to your face, that wicked bottle of chloroform, with his revolver in one hand, and a calm smile like a fiend’s playing hatefully and cruelly round that grave-looking mouth of his. I never saw any man look so ghastly in my life. I was rooted to the spot with awe and terror. I dared hardly cry out or move. Yet I knew this was murder. He would kill you! He would kill you! He was trying to poison you before my very eyes. Oh, heaven, how I hated him! He was no father of mine. He had never been my father. And he was murdering the man I loved best in the world. For I loved you better than life, Jack! Oh, the strain of it was terrible! I see it all now. I live it all over again. With one wild bound I leapt forward, and, hardly knowing what I did, I pressed the button, turned off the current from the battery, and rushed wildly upon him. I suppose the knob I pressed not only released you, but set the photographic machine at work automatically. But I didn’t know it then. At any rate, I remember now, in the seconds that followed, flash came fast after flash. There was a sudden illumination. The room was lighter than day. It grew alternately bright as noon and then dark as pitch again by contrast. And by the light of the flashes, I saw you, half-dazed with the chloroform, standing helpless there.
“I rushed up and caught the man’s arm. He was never my father! He dropped the bottle and struggled hard for possession of the pistol. First he pointed it at you, then at me, then at you again. He meant to shoot you. I was afraid it would go off. With a terrible effort I twisted his wrist awry, in the mad force of passion, and wrenched the revolver away from him. He jumped at my throat, still silent, but fierce like a tiger at bay. I eluded him, and sprang back. Then I remember no more, except that I stood with the pistol pointed at him. Next, came a flash, a loud roar. And then, in a moment, the Picture. He lay dead on the floor in his blood. And my Second State began. And from that day, for months, I was like a little child again.”
Jack looked at me as I paused.
“And then?” he went on in a very low voice, half prompting me.
“And then all I can remember,” I said, “is how you got out of the window. But I didn’t know when I saw you, it was you or anyone else. That was my Second State then. The shot seemed to end all. What comes next is quite different. It belongs to the new world. There, my life stopped dead short and began all over again.”
There was a moments silence. Jack was the first to break it.
“And now will you give yourself up to the police, Una?” he asked me quietly.
The question brought me back to the present again with a bound.
“Oh! what ought I to do?” I cried, wringing my hands. “I don’t quite know all yet. Jack, why did you run away that last moment and leave me?”
Jack took my hand very seriously.
“Una, my child,” he said, fixing his eyes on mine, “I hardly know whether I can ever make you understand all that. I must ask you at first at least just simply to believe me. I must ask you to trust me and to accept my account. When you rushed upon me as I stood there, all entangled in that hateful apparatus, and unable to move, I didn’t know where you had been; I didn’t know how you’d come there. But I felt sure you must have heard at least your false father’s last words—that he’d stifle me with the chloroform and burn my body up afterwards to ashes with his chemicals. You seized the pistol before I could quite recover from the effects of the fumes. He lay dead at my feet before I realised what was happening.
“Then, in a moment, as I looked at you, I took it all in, like a flash of lightning. I saw how impossible it would be ever to convince anybody else of the truth of our story. I saw if we both told the truth, no one would ever believe us. There was no time then to reflect, no time to hesitate. I had to make up my mind at once to a plan of action, and to carry it out without a second’s delay. In one burst of inspiration, I saw that to stop would be to seal both our fates. I didn’t mind so much for myself; that was nothing, nothing: but for your sake I felt I must dare and risk everything. Then I turned round and looked at you. I saw at one glance the horror of the moment had rendered you speechless and almost senseless. The right plan came to me at once as if by magic. ‘Una,’ I cried, ‘stand back! Wait till the servants come!’ For I knew the report of the revolver would soon bring them up to the library. Then I waited myself. As they reached the door, and forced it open, I jumped up to the window. Just outside, my bicycle stood propped against the wall. I let them purposely catch just a glimpse of my back—an unfamiliar figure. They saw the pistol on the floor,—Mr. Callingham dead—you, startled and horrified—a man unknown, escaping in hot haste from the window. I risked my own life, so as to save your name and honour. I let them see me escape, so as to exonerate you from suspicion. If they hanged me, what matter? Then I leapt down in a hurry, jumped lightly on my machine, and rode off like the wind down the avenue to the high-road. For a second or two they waited to look at you and your father. That second or two saved us. By the time they’d come out to look, I was away down the grounds, past the turn of the avenue, and well on for the high-road. They’d seen a glimpse of the murderer, escaping by the window. They would never suspect YOU. You were saved, and I was happy.”
“And for the same reason even now,” I said, “you wouldn’t tell the police?”
“Let sleeping dogs lie,” Jack answered, in the same words as Dr. Marten. “Why rake up this whole matter? It’s finished for ever now, and nobody but yourself is ever likely to reopen it. If we both told our tale, we might run a great risk of being seriously misinterpreted. You know it’s true; so do I: but who else would believe us? No man’s bound to criminate himself. You shot him to save my life, at the very moment when you first learned all his cruelty and his vileness. The rest of the world could never be made to understand all that. They’d say to the end, as it looks on the surface, ‘She shot her father to save her lover.’”
“You’re right,” I said slowly. “I shall let this thing rest. But the photographs, Jack—the apparatus—the affair of the inquest?”
“That was all very simple,” Jack answered. “For a day or two, of course, I was in a frantic state of mind for fear you should be suspected, or the revolver should betray you. But though I saw the electric sparks, of course, I knew nothing about the photographs. I wasn’t even aware that the apparatus took negatives automatically. And I was so full of the terrible reports in the newspapers about your sudden loss of health, that I could think of nothing else—least of all my own safety. As good luck would have it, however, the clergyman at Wrode, who knew the Wilsons, happened to speak to me of the murder—all England called it the murder and talked of nothing else for at least a fortnight,—and in the course of conversation he mentioned this apparatus of Mr. Callingham’s construction. ‘What a pity,’ he said, ‘there didn’t happen to be one of them in the library at the time! If it was focusse............