“No,” she cried, ignoring his request. “I have come for justice to my poor husband, who for the faults of others, by the scheming of his enemies, is now lying in prison awaiting his trial.”
Sir Gordon leaned his elbow on the chimney-piece, and with his finger nails tapped the top of the black marble clock that ticked so steadily there.
“You went over to Lindum yesterday to see Hallam?”
“I did.”
“He requested you to come and see me?”
“Yes; it was his wish, or—”
“You would not have come,” he said with a sad smile upon his lips.
“No. I would have stood in the place where the injustice of men had placed me, and trusted to my own integrity and innocence for my acquittal.”
Sir Gordon drew a long breath like a sigh of relief. He had been watching Millicent closely, as if he were suspicious either that she was playing a part, or had been biassed by her husband. But the true loving trust and belief of the woman shone out in her countenance and rang in her words. True woman—true wife! Let the world say what it would, her place was by her husband, and in his defence she was ready to lay down her life.
Sir Gordon sighed then with relief, for even now his old love for Millicent burned brightly. She had been his idol of womanly perfection, and he had felt, as it were, a contraction about his heart as the suspicion crept in for a moment that she was altered for the worse—changed by becoming the wife of Robert Hallam.