this is all no good, you know!" he cried, as if it were her test. "It would take hours to make the analysis that's really wanted." "But as far as you have gone, Doctor Dollar?" "As far as I have gone—which isn't a legal or medical inch—it certainly does look like blood, Lady Vera." "Of course it is blood. There's another thing that will help us, too." "What's that?" "One of the best points in the defense, so far as I've had time to make out, was about the prisoner's knife. Now, if we take this with us, either to the Home Secretary, or, if he still refuses to see me, to New Scotland Yard——" "Lady Vera!" the doctor interrupted, aghast at her suicidal zeal. "Is it possible that you realize[Pg 53] the position you are in? It isn't only a situation that you've got to face; that you have already done, superbly! But have you any conception of the consequences?" [Pg 53] "I think I have," said Lady Vera, smiling. "I don't believe they will hang me; it would be affectation to pretend I did. But, of course, that's their business—mine is to change places with an innocent man." "That you will never do," replied the doctor warmly. "There's no innocent man in the case; this Croucher is a thief and a perjurer, besides being an old convict who has spent half his life in prison! He would have had five years for the other night's work, without any question of a murder; they'll simply pack him off to Dartmoor or Portland when we've saved his miserable neck. And save it we will, no fear about that; but at what a price—at what a price!" "I don't see that you need trouble about it," said Lady Vera, concerned at his distress, "beyond putting me in touch with Mr. Vinson. The rest will be up to him, as they say; and, after all, it[Pg 54] won't be anything so very terrible to me. I am an old prisoner myself, you must remember!" [Pg 54] There was a gleam of her notorious audacity with all this; but it was like the glow of flowers on a grave. The horror of things to happen had never possessed her valiant eyes, and yet it must have been there, for all at once Dollar missed it. He read her look. He had relieved her mind about the man in
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