He was torn and spent by conflicting emotions. He did not doubt his wife, yet the words of the young girl rang true, and there was only truth and nobility stamped upon the gloomy face of the poet. What was he to believe? How could he decide? His confidence in his wife had never yet been shaken—yet, stay—there was once when—but he would not think of that time, it was so long ago, yet think of it he did with uneasy misgivings. If she had deceived him once, might she not again? he asked himself fearfully.
“Mr. Burns, will you assure me on your word of honor as a man that you are entirely innocent of any intentional insult to Lady Glencairn?” asked Mr. Mackenzie bluntly. He had taken his place beside Robert, along with Mrs. Dunlop and Mary and Eppy McKay, together with a few more of Robert’s sympathizers and stanch believers in his innocence. And now he asked the question in hope of eliciting some explanation, some excuse, anything, from the silent man.
Robert raised his head and without looking at any one particular person, answered simply, indifferently, as many thought.
“I have always held Lady Glencairn in the highest respect and admiration,” he said quietly. “She alone knows what is the end she aims at, by attributing feelings to me with regard to her which I have never conceived, and words which I have never uttered.” And he sank once more into his listless attitude.
Lord Glencairn passed his hand over his brow in a bewildered manner. “You were ever truthful, Robert,” he muttered so low that none but his wife heard his implied doubt of her.
She turned on him witheringly. “My lord, you insult me by lending an ear to aught he or his witness can say in his behalf,” she exclaimed frigidly. Then, turning to the onlookers, she continued with insolent innuendo in words and manner, “You all know the infatuated attachment of this maid for Mr. Burns, who has bewitched her until she is ready to sacrifice every consideration of truth, reason, or duty to shield her guilty lover.”
“What a scandal this will cause throughout Edinburgh,” whispered Eppy to Mrs. Dunlop, who was almost beside herself with speechless indignation by this time. She had been listening with growing anger to Lady Glencairn’s insolent falsehoods, for she knew they were falsehoods, and she would never believe that Robbie would belittle himself by lying, for he was too brutally frank and truthful at times to be thoroughly an agreeable companion.
Eppy’s inopportune remark was the straw that broke the camel’s back, and she turned on her hotly. “Hold your tongue, ye old busy body!” she exploded violently, nearly knocking the astonished Eppy down by the suddenness, the unexpectedness, of the retort.
“I was never so insulted in my life,” Eppy gasped tearfully, making little dabs at her eyes with a dainty ’kerchief, and casting hurt, reproachful glances at the blunt old lady, who, after delivering her shaft at the unoffending Eppy, turned to Lord Glencairn, the fire still flashing in her determined eyes.
“Lord Glencairn,” she said, with a touch of defiance, “you may forbid me your house hereafter, and indeed I hardly believe I will be welcome,” with a look at the scornful face of her hostess; “but I care not; I believe in Robert’s innocence, and that Mary Campbell has only spoken the truth.” A few nodded their heads to each other in approval. Lord Glencairn stood mute, a prey to the doubting fear which gripped his heart.