"How can one believe that? I only wish I could. Read this letter!"
She looked at him first, and her eyes flashed at his expression of unbelief. She drew herself up as she took Cora's letter in her hands, and read it through with a curl of contempt upon her lips. Then she dropped the paper, and, clasping Milly's child to her breast, looked long and steadily at her brother.
"Why did you give me that to read?" she said quietly.
"There could be only one reason," he replied; "to ask you if it is true?"
"You ask me? You expect an answer?"
"I don't see why you should object to say 'yes' or 'no' to a charge which, if true, must destroy all brotherly and sisterly feeling between us."
"But you are my brother! Ask me your own questions, and I will answer. I will not answer that woman's!"
She stood in front of him, by far the more proud and dignified of the two, and waited for him to begin.
"Did you bring that man with you here from the prison?"
"I brought Mr. Walcott here."