He saw her eyelids give the faintest quiver and knew himself to be on
the right track. "Something's gone wrong--suddenly--after all these
years."
He felt himself groping--groping--in the dark recesses of her mind
where she was trying to hide her secret from him. "The boy--it's to do
with him. You wouldn't mind about anything else."
He heard the very faint gasp she gave and knew he had probed
correctly. A cruel business but necessary. It was her will against
his. She had got a dominant, ruthless will, but he too had a will
hidden beneath his meek manner. And he had behind him the heaven-sent
assurance of a man who is doing his proper job. He felt a passing
contemptuous pity for men whose business it was to track down such
crudities as crime. This detective business of the mind, this
assembling of clues, this delving for the truth, this wild joy as one
drew nearer to the goal--Her very passion to keep the truth from him
helped him. He felt her stiffen defiantly as he drew nearer and nearer.
"It is better for me not to know, you say. Better for _me_? But you
are not a very considerate woman. You would not shrink from putting a
stranger to a little temporary inconvenience. It is more than that,
then? If you tell me, you make me an accomplice before the fact. That
sounds like crime. Fantastic! I could not associate crime with you. Or
only one sort of crime. A crime against yourself."
Her lids drooped in spite of herself, veiled her eyes. He leaned
forward and caught her wrist.
"It _is_ that, then! You are thinking of taking your life."