I can only attribute my lingering to the sense of fatality that all things would come round and be all square.
Love I had laid aside till I could see my way a little clearer in the certainly perplexing combination of circumstances. Nevertheless, Philippa, I say it advisedly, seemed to me a good deal more pure and innocent than when we first met. True, she had been secretly married to a man under a name which she knew to be false.
True, she had given birth to a baby whose later fate remains a mystery even to this day. True, her hands were stained with the blood of Sir Runan Errand.
But why speak of Redistribution, why agitate for Woman’s Suffrage, if trifles like these are to obstruct a girl’s path in society?
Philippa’s wrongs had goaded her to madness. Her madness was responsible for the act. She was not mad any longer. Therefore she was not responsible. Therefore Philippa was innocent.
If she became mad again, then it would be time to speak of guilt.
But would these arguments be as powerful with a British as they certainly would have proved with a French jury?
Once Philippa seemed to awaken to a sense of the situation.
Once she asked me ‘How she came to my home that night?’
‘You came out of the whirling snow, and in a high state of delirium,’ I answered, epigrammatically.