"I don't see what Sir Simon has to do with it," said she, tartly.
"He is dead."
"Dead!"—Miss Berengaria shivered. "You don't mean to say that."
"Read! Read! Everything is against him—everything. Oh, how can I bear my life? How can I live?"
"Alice," said the old dame again, although she was very white, "if this lying paper means to say that Bernard murdered Sir Simon, I tell you again that I don't believe a word of it. You, who love him, ought to believe in his innocence."
"But the evidence."
"A fig for evidence. Circumstantial evidence has hanged an innocent man before now. Bernard Gore kill that old tyrant——?"
"Hush! He is dead!"
"And so we are to speak well of him," snapped Miss Berengaria. "Oh, well"—she rubbed her nose—"we'll tell lies about him like the majority of tombstones do of those who lie below, but I tell you, foolish girl that you are, Bernard did not kill the old man, nor did he kill himself."
"But the paper says——"