" She took one of his hands in both her own and held it
tight. "John, dear, I've got something to tell you."
He was silent.
"I made Duggan promise not to tell you I was here when he found you,
and I made him promise something else--to keep a secret I wanted to
tell you myself. It was wonderful of him. I don't see how he did it."
She snuggled still closer to him, and held his hand a little tighter.
"You see, John, there was a terrible time after you killed Shan Tung.
Only a little while after you had gone, I saw the sky growing red. It
was Shan Tung's place--afire. I was terrified, and my heart was broken,
and I didn't move. I must have sat at the window a long time, when the
door burst open suddenly and Miriam ran in, and behind her came
McDowell. Oh, I never heard a man swear as McDowell swore when he found
you had gone, and Miriam flung herself on the floor at my feet and
buried her head in my lap.
"McDowell tramped up and down, and at last he turned to me as if he was
going to eat me, and he fairly shouted, 'Do you know--THAT CURSED FOOL
DIDN'T KILL JUDGE KIRKSTONE!'"
There was a pause in which Keith's brain reeled. And Mary Josephine
went on, as quietly as though she were talking about that evening's
sunset:
"Of course, I knew all along, from what you had told me about John
Keith, that he wasn't what you would call a murderer.
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