She attempted to speak, but a mute sob was all that ensued.
With a piercing sarcasm, he asked—
“Can I serve you in any manner this morning, madam?”
With a gesture of deprecation and entreaty, she answered—
“Yes! yes! I wish to be put upon my trial! Archer!—Major Clifton! you withdrew your favor from me so suddenly! You never told me why! Oh! tell me, before you go, how I have been so wretched as to lose your esteem—and put me upon my defence.”
He frowned, darkly, as with both pain and anger, and replied—
“I have had occasion twice before to remind you, Mrs. Clifton, that this is a prohibited subject of conversation between us.”
She clasped her hands, in the earnestness of supplication, exclaiming—
“Why? Oh! why? You were always just. You never judged your poorest slave, unheard! Oh! what have I done, or omitted to do? Tell me! Make the charge, and see how I can answer it! Archer!—I mean Major Clifton—forgive it—but for all, it springs so naturally from heart to lip, to call you Archer—because—because there is no feeling of estrangement in my heart, nor can I make it there! Major Clifton, then!—consider!—the greatest criminals have the right of a trial, with the crime of which they are suspected, distinctly and openly charged upon them—with the evidence on both sides taken, and their defence heard, before they are condemned. I know that you would not be otherwise than just. Will you condemn me untried, unjudged, unheard?”
“It is quite sufficient to me, madam,” he answered, haughtily, “that the proofs of your turpitude are conclusive to my own mind.”