"Neither do I understand," broke in Virginia. "But I have never understood myself. I only know that this seems to be the thing I was born for. And if I fail in what I want to do for you and yours, why, I shall have come into the world for nothing, that is all."
"But you are wonderful!" exclaimed Madeleine Dalahaide, realizing with sudden force the other's extreme beauty and strong magnetism. "Did you—is it possible that you ever knew my brother?"
"I never heard his name till yesterday. But I have seen you, I have seen this house, I have heard something of the story, and—I have seen his portrait. Nobody told me, of course, that it was his; nobody could. But I knew at once. And I wondered how any one who had ever known him could have believed that—that——"
"Don't be afraid to say it. Believed that he was a murderer. Oh, friends—friends! Friendship is a flower that withers with the first frost."
"You shan't have cause to think that of me—if you are going to take me for a friend."
"I shall thank heaven for you. Even if you can do nothing, to think that there is one human being in the world besides my poor aunt and me who believe in him, is like balm on an open wound. Come with me into the room where you saw the portrait. I painted it the year before—the end. I talk to it sometimes, and for a moment I almost forget the horrible truth—when the eyes smile back at me just as they used to do when we had some joke together."
"As they will again," finished Virginia.
They went into the room of the portrait and stood before it in silence. Each one felt that its look was for her.
"And yet," Madeleine said, as if answering a question, "there must be some one who thinks of us, and remembers us with kindness, giving him at least the benefit of a doubt; some one who talked to you of Max and told you the story of—of his so-called crime in such a way as not to fill your mind with horror."
"No one has told me the story yet," hesitated Virginia. "I have only heard hints. They said—the word—murder! But that is not the face of a murderer. How could any one believe it?"