"Enter," said he, lifting the curtain.
Involuntarily she recoiled. Not from him, but from the revelation she felt to be awaiting her in this place of unguessed mystery. Looking back into the space behind her, she caught a fleeting glimpse of Reuther hovering on a distant threshold. Leaving the judge, without even a murmured word of apology, she ran to the child, embraced her, and promised to join her soon; and then, satisfied with the comfort thus gained, she returned quickly to where the judge still awaited her, with his hand on the curtain.
"Forgive me," said she; and meeting with no reply, stood trembling while he unlocked the door and ushered her in.
A new leaf in the history of this old crime was about to be turned.
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?