"I was accused of having forged your brother's name."
A faint cry escaped her; her lips grew white, and her eyes darkened and
dilated.
"Accused. But wrongfully?"
His breath came and went in quick, sharp spasms.
"I could not prove that."
"Not prove it? Why?"
"I could not."
"But he--Philip--never believed you guilty?"
"I cannot tell. He may; he must."
"But you are not!"
It was not an interrogation, but an affirmation that rang out in the
silver clearness of her voice. There was not a single intonation of
doubt in it; there was rather a haughty authority that forbade even
himself to say that one of his race and that one of his Order could have
been capable of such ignoble and craven sin.
His mouth quivered, a bitter sigh broke from him; he turned his eyes on
her with a look that pierced her to the heart.
"Think me guilty or guiltless, as you will; I cannot answer you."
His last words were suffocated with the supreme anguish of their
utterance. As she heard it, the generosity, the faith, the inherent
justice, and the intrinsic sweetness that were latent in her beneath
the negligence and the chillness of external semblance rose at once to
reject the baser, to accept the nobler, belief offered to her choice.
She had lived much in the world, but it had not corroded her; she
had acquired keen discernment from it, but she had preserved all the
courageous and the chivalrous instincts of her superb nature.
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