If she became mad again, then it would be time to speak of guilt.
But would these arguments be as powerful with a British as they certainly would have proved with a French jury?
Once Philippa seemed to awaken to a sense of the situation.
Once she asked me ‘How she came to my home that night?’
‘You came _out of_ the whirling snow, and _in_ a high state of delirium,’ I answered, epigrammatically.
‘I thought I came on foot,’ she replied, dreamily.
‘But, Basil,’ she went on, ‘what afterwards? What’s the next move, my noble sportsman?’
In order to avert suspicion, I thought it was better not to shut up my house.
For the same purpose, I did a little in crime on my own account.
William, the Sphynx, obviously ‘was in the know,’ as sporting characters say. Was in the know of what was in the snow! I must silence William.
First I laid in two dozen of very curious pale sherry at half-a-crown.
I bought each bottle at a separate shop in a different disguise (making twenty-four in all), that my proceedings might not attract attention.
I laid down the deadly fluid with all proper caution in the cellar.
At parting from William I gave him five shillings and the cellar key, telling him to be very careful, and await my instructions.
I knew well that long before my ‘instructions’ could reach him, the faithful William would be speechless, and far beyond the reach of human science.
His secret would sleep with the White Groom.
Then Philippa and I drove to town, Philippa asking me conundrums, like Nebuchadnezzar.
‘There was something I dreamed of. Tell me what it was?’ she asked.
But, though better informed than the Wise Men and Soothsayers of old, I did not gratify her unusual desire.
On reaching town I drove straight to the hotel at which my mother was staying.
It was one of those highly-priced private hotels in the New Out.
As, however, I had no desire to purchase this place of entertainment, the exorbitant value set on it by its proprietors did not affect my spirits.
In a few minutes I had told my mother all save two things: the business of the baby, and the fate which had overtaken Sir Runan.
With these trifling exceptions she knew all.
To fall into Philippa’s arms was, to my still active parent, the work of a moment.