“You are quite, quite sure of that, John dear?”

“Not a hair of my head! Moreover, I have done no wrong, and have injured no man. Shall I swear it?”

“No, John!” cried Bella, laying her hand upon his lips, with a proud look. “Never to me!”

“But circumstances,” he went on “⁠—I can, and I will, disperse them in a moment⁠—have surrounded me with one of the strangest suspicions ever known. You heard Mr. Lightwood speak of a dark transaction?”

“Yes, John.”

“You are prepared to hear explicitly what he meant?”

“Yes, John.”

“My life, he meant the murder of John Harmon, your allotted husband.”