The lids drooped over her eyes.
"I don't know," she said, in a faint voice. "I don't know. Oh no, not
_quarreled_--"
Sir Wilfrid looked at her with a fatherly concern; took her limp hand and
pressed it.
"Stand by him, dear, stand by him! He'll suffer enough from this--without
losing you."
Marcia did not answer. Lester had returned to the hall, and he and Bury
then got from her, as gently as possible, a full account of her two
interviews with Mrs. Betts. Lester wrote it down, and Marcia signed it. The
object of the two men was to make the police authorities acquainted with
such testimony as Marcia had to give, while sparing her if possible an
appearance at the inquest. While Lester was writing, Sir Wilfrid threw
occasional scathing glances toward the distant Arthur, who seemed to be
alternately pacing up and down and reading the newspapers. But the young
man showed no signs whatever of doing or suggesting anything further to
help his sister.
Sir Wilfrid perceived at once how Marcia's narrative might be turned
against the Newburys, round whom the hostile feeling of a whole
neighborhood was probably at that moment rising into fury. Was there ever a
more odious, a more untoward situation!
But he could not be certain that Marcia understood it so.
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