“Thank God for that!”
“Stop a moment. Not so fast, my girl! It isn't true—because there's no fancy at all about it, d'ye see?”
Arabella saw. It was written and painted all over his lined yet glowing face; but where there could be least mistake about it was in his eyes. They were ablaze with love—with love for a woman who had neither name, honour, nor common purity. He could not know this. But Arabella knew all, and it was her business—nay, her solemn undertaking—to repeat all that she knew to John William.
“I was told,” she faltered, “what to say to you if you said that.”
“Who told you?”
“She did—Missy.”
“Then say it right out.”
But that was difficult between brother and sister. At first he refused to understand, and then he refused to believe.
“It's a lie!” he cried hoarsely. “I don't believe a word of it!”
“And do you suppose I would make it up? Upon my sacred honour, John William, it is only what she told me with her own——”