“I ask you to swear it.”
She was still silent.
“Come, now—will you declare upon oath that you did not write that letter?”
“God sees me! I did not!”
“That’s no oath! Here’s the New Testament, swear upon the Holy Evangelists of Almighty God that you didn’t write it, and, perhaps, I will believe you, for well I know that many unprincipled people have a sort of fearful respect for an oath, which in them is not piety, but superstition. I think you just such a one! Come, now, swear that you did not write it!” He paused for an answer, but she looked at him in great trouble. “Will you do it?”
“Major Clifton, I cannot!”
“Not swear that you did not write it?”
“No, sir.”
“Then that only confirms and seals the truth of what I knew before, that, of course, you did write it.”
She wrung her hands in deep distress, and said—