"
"A noble girl! a mate for the best!" fell from the judge's lips
after a silence disturbed only by the faint, far-off murmur of a
slowly dispersing throng.
Deborah made no answer. She could not yet trust her courage or her
voice.
The judge, who was standing near, concentrated his look upon her
features. Still she made no effort to meet his eye. He did not
speak, and the silence grew appalling. To break it, he stepped
away and took a glance out of the window. There was nothing to be
seen there; the fence hid all, but he continued to look, the
shadows from his soul settling deeper and deeper upon his
countenance as each heavy moment dragged by. When he finally
turned, it was with a powerful effort which communicated itself to
her and forced her long-bowed head to rise and her troubled mind
to disclose itself.
"You wish to express your displeasure, and hesitate on account of
Reuther," she faltered. "You need not. We are quite prepared to
leave your house if our presence reminds you too much of the
calamity I have brought upon you by my inconsiderate revival of a
past you had every reason to believe buried."
His reply was uttered with great courtesy.
"Madam," said he, "I have never had a thought from the first
moment of your coming, of any change in the arrangements we then
entered into; nor is the demonstration we have just witnessed a
calamity of sufficient importance to again divide this household.
To connect my high-minded son with a crime for which he had no
motive and from which he could reap no benefit is, if you will
pardon my plain speaking at a moment so critical, even greater
folly than to exculpate, after all these years, the man whom a
conscientious jury found guilty.
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