“We never meant, he nor I, that his daughter should lose anything by my inheritance of his money.”
It was modestly, almost delicately said and had he loved her I could not but have admired him at that moment. But he did not love her, and to save my soul I could not help sending a glance her way. Would her head rise in proud acknowledgment of his worth or would it fall in shame at his hypocrisy? It fell, but then, I was honest enough to realize that the shame this bespoke might be that of a loving woman troubled at hearing her soul’s most sacred secrets thus bared before the public.
Anxious for her as well as for myself, I turned my eyes upon the crowd confronting us, and wondered at the softened looks I saw there. He had touched a chord of fine emotion in the breasts of these curiosity-mongers. It was no new story to them. It had been common gossip for years that he was to marry Orpha and so make her and himself equal heirs of this great fortune. But his bearing as he spoke,—the magnetism which carried home his lightest word—gave to the well-known romance a present charm which melted every heart.
I felt how impotent any words of mine would be to stem the tide of sympathy that was bearing him on and soon would sweep me out of sight.
But as, overwhelmed by this prospect, I cowered low in my seat, the thought came that these men and women whose dictum I feared were not the arbiters of my destiny. And I took a look at the jury and straightened in my seat. Surely I saw more than one honest face among the twelve and two or three that were more than ordinarily intelligent. I should stand some chance with them.
Meanwhile another question had been put.
“Did your uncle at any time ever suggest to you that under a change of circumstances he might change his mind?”
“Never, till the day before he died.”
“There was no break between you? No quarrel?”
“We did not always agree. I am not perfect—” With a smile he said this—“and it was only natural that he should express himself as not always satisfied with my conduct. But break? No. He loved me better than I deserved.”