Chapter 19 - Page 2

more must I give up myself, now I know it was
I who really did it!"

He held me down by main force. He pinned me to the sofa. I suppose
it's because I'm a woman, and weak, and all that--but I liked even
then to feel how strong and how big he was, and how feeble I was
myself, like a child in his arms. And I resisted on purpose, just to
feel him hold me. Somehow, I couldn't realize, after all, that I was
indeed a murderess. It didn't seem possible. I couldn't believe it
was in me.

"Jack," I said slowly, giving way at last, and letting him hold me
down with his small strong hands and slender iron wrist, "tell me,
if you will, how I came to do it. I'll sit here quite still, if only
you'll tell me. Am I really a murderess?"

Jack recoiled like one shot.

"YOU a murderess, my spotless Una!" he exclaimed, all aghast. "If
anyone else on earth but you had just asked such a thing in my
presence, I'd have leapt at the fellow's throat, and held him down
till I choked him!"

"But I did it!" I cried wildly. "I remember now, I did it. It all
comes back to me at last. I fired at him, just so. I aimed the
loaded pistol point-blank at his heart, I can hear the din in my
ears. I can see the flash at the muzzle. And then I flung down the
pistol--like this--at my feet: and darkness came on; and I forgot
everything. Why, Dr. Marten knew that much! I remember now, he told
me he'd formed a very strong impression, from the nature of the
wound and the position of the various objects on the floor of the
room, who it was that did it! He must have seen it was _I_ who flung
down the pistol."

Jack gazed at me in suspense.

"He's a very good friend of yours, then," he murmured, "that Dr.
Marten. For he never said a word of all that at the inquest."

"But I must give myself up!" I cried, in a fever of penitence for
what that other woman who once was ME had done. "Oh, Jack, do let
me! It's hateful to know I'm a murderess and to go unpunished. It's
hateful to draw back from the fate I'd have imposed on another. I'd
like to be hanged for it. I want to be hanged. It's the only
possible way to appease one's conscience."

And yet, though I said it, I felt all the time it wasn't really I,
but that other strange girl who once lived at The Grange and looked
exactly like me. I remember it, to be sure; but it was in my Other
State: and, so far as my moral responsibility was concerned, my
Other State and I were two different people.

For I knew in my heart I couldn't commit a murder.

Jack rose without a word, and fetched me in some brandy.

"Drink this," he said