The tears rose in Margaret's beautiful eyes, but still she would not hear Ralph called by such a name. "You have no right, sir," she said, "so boldly to announce my cousin Ralph a murderer till he has been proved so."
Robert Woodhall saw her emotion with infinite pleasure, but he answered in a quiet tone, though with a slightly-curled lip, "I did not know that there was any doubt of it."
"Great doubt," replied Margaret; "I, for one, do not believe that Ralph would ever draw his sword against poor Henry; and there are others, wiser, and better able to judge than myself, who do not believe it either."
"Indeed!" exclaimed Robert Woodhall, with unfeigned surprise; "pray who?"
"For one, the Duke of Norfolk," answered Margaret.
"You astonish me," said Robert, musing; "then pray whom do you and the good duke suspect?"
There was something contemptuous and bitter in his tone, which kindled a momentary anger in Margaret's breast, and she answered, "No one in particular, Robert Woodhall; but we should suspect you just as soon as poor Ralph. Pray where is he, if you have discovered?"
One of his slight, shrewd, sarcastic smiles came upon Robert Woodhall's face; and he answered, "He is at Danvers's New Church, the seat of the fair Hortensia, to whom he is about to be married, if the hangman does not previously perform for him a ceremony of a different kind."
"Unfeeling, heartless man!" exclaimed Margaret, rising, with her face flushed, to quit the room; but Robert placed himself in her way, saying, "Your father wishes you to stay here until he returns.--Why do you call me unfeeling, Margaret? I did not intend to either offend or grieve you."
Margaret returned and seated herself, but when he again asked the question, she replied, "If my father wishes me to remain, I will remain; but I remain not to converse with you, Robert Woodhall. I tell you, I doubt you--nay, more, I do not believe you. More than once I have detected you in saying things that were untrue; and I will now know, as soon as my father returns, whether it was his wish or will that I should remain with one whose society is unpleasant to me."