"My child—my dear child," exclaimed the father, more moved by paternal tenderness than he ever yet had been,—"I am innocent—I am innocent!"
"Almighty God be thanked for that assurance!" murmured Adelais, as she fell upon her knees, and bent her burning face over her father's emaciated hands:—for Mr. Torrens had become frightfully thin—altered—and care-worn,—and his entire appearance denoted how acute his mental sufferings had been.
"Clarence," he cried, after a few moments' pause during which he raised his daughter, and placed her upon a seat,—"Clarence, did you hear my declaration? I am innocent!"
"I heard it—and I rejoice unfeignedly—oh! most unfeignedly," returned the young man, not knowing what to think, but speaking thus to console his heart-wrung wife.
"But whether I can prove my innocence—whether I can triumph over the awful weight of circumstantial evidence which has accumulated against me," continued Mr. Torrens, "is a point which God alone can determine."
An ejaculation of despair burst from the lips of Adelais.
"For heaven's sake, compose yourself, dearest!" said Villiers. "You have heard your father declare his innocence——"
"Yes—yes," she cried: "but if the world will not believe him? It is not sufficient that we should be convinced of that innocence! Oh! my God—wherefore has this terrible affliction fallen upon us?"—then, suddenly struck by another idea, she exclaimed, "And Rosamond, dear father—what has become of my sister Rosamond?"
Mr. Torrens turned away, and burst into tears—for that question revived a thousand agonising reminiscences in his mind.
"My father here—my sister gone," mused Adelais, her manner suddenly becoming strangely subdued, and the wild intensity of her earnest eyes changing in a moment to an expression of idiotic vacancy;—"and Clarence—where is he? Methought he was with me just now——"