Once within the room, he became his courteous self once more. "Be
seated," he begged, indicating a chair in the half gloom. As she
took it, the room sprang into sudden light. He had pulled the
string which regulated the curtains over the glazed panes in the
ceiling. Then as quickly all was gloom again; he had let the
string escape from his hand.
"Half light is better," he muttered in vague apology.
It was a weird beginning to an interview whose object was as yet
incomprehensible to her. One minute a blinding glimpse of the room
whose details were so varied that many of them still remained
unknown to her,--the next, everything swept again into shadow
through which the tall form of the genius of the place loomed with
melancholy suggestion!
She was relieved when he spoke.
"Mrs. Scoville (not Deborah now) have you any confidence in
Oliver's word?"
She did not reply at once. Too much depended upon a simple yes or
no. Her first instinctive cry would have been YES, but if Oliver
had been guilty and yet held back his dreadful secret all these
years, how could she believe his word, when his whole life had
been a lie?
"Has there ever been anything in his conversation as you knew it
in Detroit to make you hesitate to reply?" the judge persisted, as
she continued speechless.
"No; nothing. I had every confidence in his assertions. I should
have yet, if it were not for this horror."
"Forget it for a moment. Recall his effect upon you as a man, a
prospective son-in-law,--for you meant him to marry Reuther.
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