"Oh!" she said, but as one who recalls a forgotten fact, not as one who is tripped up in an evasion.
I began to think her innocent and lost some of the gloom which had been oppressing me.
"You remember now," said I.
"Oh, yes, I remember that."
Her manner so completely declared that her acknowledgments stopped there, I saw it would be useless to venture further. If she were innocent she could not tell more, if she were guilty she would not; so feeling that the inclination of my belief was in favor of the former hypothesis, I again took her hand and said:
"I see that you can give me no help. I am sorry, for the whole happiness of a man, and perhaps that of a woman also, depends upon the discovery as to who took the letter from out the Bible where I had hidden it on that unfortunate morning." And making her another low bow, I was about to take my departure when she grasped me impulsively by the arm.
"What man?" she whispered, and in a lower tone still, "What woman?"
I turned and looked at her. "Great heaven!" thought I, "can such a face hide a selfish and intriguing heart?" and in a flash I summoned up in comparison before me the plain, honest, and reliable countenance of Mrs. Couldock and that of the comely and unpretending Miss Dawes, and knew not what to think.
"You do not mean yourself?" she continued as she met my look of distress.
"No," I returned; "happily for me, my welfare is not bound up in the honor of any woman," and leaving that shaft to work its way into her heart if that heart was vulnerable, I took my leave, more troubled and less decided than when I entered.