"Always Richard Markham!" cried the count angrily. "Why do you perpetually throw his name in my teeth?"
"Because I think that you judged him too hastily," said the countess.
"Not at all! did he not admit that he had been in Newgate?"
A cold shudder crept over Isabella's frame.
"Yes; and so has our friend Mr. Armstrong, whom you value so highly, and whose letter from Germany gave you so much pleasure yesterday morning."
"Certainly I was pleased to receive that letter, because I had not heard from Armstrong so long: I fancied that something had happened to him. But, to return to what you were saying," continued the count; "Armstrong was incarcerated merely for a political offence; and there is something honourable in that."
"Mr. Markham may have been more unfortunate than guilty," said the countess. "At all events you have condemned without giving him a fair hearing. I have even asked you to refer to the newspapers of the period and read his case; but you refuse to give him a single chance."
"Your ladyship is very quick to blame," said the count, somewhat sarcastically; "but you forget how rejoiced you were some years ago to discover that the chevalier Gilderstein, whose father was executed for coining, was no relation of your family, as you had long deemed him to be: and yet the chevalier was himself innocent of his father's offence."
"I certainly have expressed myself more than once in the way you mention," returned the countess; "but I had so spoken without due consideration. Now that a case is immediately present to my view, I am inclined to feel and act more charitably."
"But how could Mr. Markham justify himself?" exclaimed the count. "Was not that attempt at burglary in this house so very glaring?"