d. I did not
look towards the bed, but kept close to the door, straining my ears to
catch any sound in the passage outside. But after a while I began to get
frightened in that dark room with the door locked, and dreadful thoughts
came into my mind. I remembered a story I had read about a man who was
locked up all night in a room with a dead body, and was found mad in the
morning, and the position of the corpse had changed. It seemed to me as
though Mr. Glenthorpe was sitting up in bed looking at me, but I dared
not turn round to see. I knew that I must get out of the room or scream.
I lit the candle, felt for the knife behind the picture, and opened the
door. As soon as the candle was alight I felt braver, and I looked out
of the door before going into the passage. I could see nothing--all
seemed quiet--so I came out of the room and locked the door behind me
and went downstairs.

"Once I was outside the house and could see the friendly stars all my
fears vanished. I know the marshes so well that I can find my way across
them at any time. And in my heart I had the feeling that I had been
brave and helped him. When I had thrown the knife into the sea from the
breakwater I felt almost lighthearted, and when I reached my room again
I fell asleep as soon as I got into bed.

"Until you spoke to me the next day I had no idea that you had seen and
followed me. But I knew it the moment you stopped me and said you
wanted to speak to me. Then I realised you had watched me, and the story
I told you to account for my visit to the room came into my head. I did
not know whether you believed me or not, but I did not care much,
because I knew you could not have seen what I threw into the sea. That
secret was safe as long as I kept silence; and you couldn't make me
speak against my will."

Peggy, as she concluded, glanced up wistfully to see how her companion
received her story, but she could learn nothing from the detective's
inscrutable face. Colwyn, on his part, was thinking rapidly. He believed
that the innkeeper's daughter, yielding to the strain of a secret too
heavy to be borne alone, had this time told him the truth, but, as he
ran over the main points of her narrative in his mind, he could not see
that it shed any additional light on the murder. The only new fact that
she had revealed was that she and Penreath had been acquainted before.
She had also, perhaps unconsciously, given away the fact that she and
Penreath were in lo