Weak and fever-shaken as I was, I yet made shift to get upon my elbow feebly fierce, denouncing it hotly for a lie.
"Who slandered her like this, Dick? Put a name to the cur, and as I live and get my strength again, I'll hunt him down and choke him with that lie!"
"Nay," he objected soberly; "that would be my quarrel, were there ever a peg to hang a quarrel on. But it came by a sure hand, and one that is friendly enough to all concerned. An old free borderer, Ephraim Yeates by name, brought me the tale. He had been spying round at Appleby Hundred, wanting to know, for some purpose of his own, why the redcoats and Cherokees were hanging on so long; and this much he overheard one night when he was outlying under the window of the withdrawing-room. He says she was in a pretty passion at the baronet's slackness, stamping her foot at him and lashing him with the taunt that he was afeard of one or both of us."
I fell back on the bearskins to shut my eyes and call up all the might of love to grapple with this fresh misery. It was in this fierce conflict of faith against apparent fact that I descried the parting of the ways for the lover and the husband.
Jennifer believed this most incredible thing, and yet he loved her—would go on loving her, as he had said, in spite of all. That was the lover's road, and I could never bear him company on it. Could I believe her so pitiless cruel as this, I made sure no husband-love could live beyond that moment of conviction.
But at this perilous pass the husband's road ran truer than the lover's. Richard believed her capable of this hard-hearted thing and went on loving her blindly in spite of it. But as for me, I said I would never give belief an inch of standing-room; that had I stood in Ephraim Yeates's shoes, having the witness of my own eyes and ears, I would still have found excuse and exculpation for her.
I stole a glance at Jennifer. He was sitting with his face in his hands, a silent figure of a strong man humbled. He had called her a Delilah, and the green withes of her binding cut sore into the flesh.
"You say you love her, Dick; can you believe her capable of this, and yet go on loving her?" I asked.
He let me see his face. It was haggard and grief-marred.
"I'd pay the devil's own price could I say 'no' to that, Jack. But I can not."