"You have broken your promise! You
have touched what you were forbidden to touch! You have--"
"Not so," she broke in softly but very firmly. "I have touched
nothing that I was told not to, nor have I broken any promise. I
simply saw more than I was expected to, I suppose, of the picture
which fell the day you first allowed me to enter your study."
"Is that true?"
"It is true."
They were whispering now.
Drawing a deep breath, he gathered up his faculties. "Upon such
accidents," he muttered, "hang the fate and honour of men. And you
have gossiped about this picture," he again vociferated with
sudden and unrestrained violence, "told Reuther--told others--"
"No." The denial was peremptory,--not to be disbelieved. "What I
have learned, I have kept religiously to myself. Alas!" she half
moaned, half cried, "that I should feel the necessity!"
"Madam!"--he was searching her eyes, searching her very soul, as
men seldom search the mind of another. "You believe in the truth
of these calumnies that have just been shouted in our ears. You
believe what they say of Oliver. You with every prejudice in his
favour; with every desire to recognise his worth! You, who have
shown yourself ready to drop your husband's cause though you
consider it an honest one, when you saw what havoc it would entail
to my boy's repute. YOU believe--and on what evidence?" he broke
in. "Because of the picture?"
"Yes."
"And the coincidence of his presence in the ravine?"
"Yes.
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