And I had failed to respond to the hint he had given me.

The act itself must appear so sinister and the impulse which drove me to it so incomprehensible, without the heart-rending explanation I dare not subjoin, that I never questioned the wisdom of silence in its regard.
Yet this silence had undone me.

I had been seen fingering my dead betrothed's throat, and nothing I could now say or do would ever convince people that she was dead before my hands touched her, strangled by another's clutch.

One person only in the whole world would know and feel how false this accusation was.

And yesterday that one's trust in my guiltlessness would have thrown a ray of light upon the deepest infamy which could befall me.