“Because I have the assurance to take the bull by the horns, waylay you, and insist upon coming to an explanation?”
“No—o, not because of that.”
“Why then?”
Olivia continued to gaze at him as solemnly as if she had been a judge passing sentence.
“It is very difficult to say quite why,” she began, deliberately. “They say women hardly ever can say why they believe a thing.”
“Is that all your answer?”
“No,” she replied rather sharply, beginning to be a little annoyed at the irony in his tone. “They have never proved it, for one thing although they tried. And—how can a man have changed so in ten years?”
“The first is a reason; the other is not. But you have just seen with your own eyes the only witness to my actions on that night, and heard with your own ears that he has not been in the neighborhood since.”
Olivia assented.
“Then you say, ‘How can a man have changed so much in ten years?’ But I tell you I have changed so much in that time that, except for externals, I might pass for a different man. Now what becomes of your reasons for thinking me innocent?”