Deborah was pale as one worn with some great care or long watching. Judas scarcely noted this. Indeed, he forgot the usual formality of salutation as he was admitted into her presence, but burst through the curtained doorway, his big voice ringing out the news like a trumpet announcing victory.
"Dion is not a traitor! He is exonerated!"
He grasped both her hands in the eagerness with which he told the turn of affairs. Her beaming gratification led him to more enthusiasm.
"Agathocles is like Dion. Though in a Greek, good blood will tell. It is like a spring in a muddy lake."
"But tell me more of the evidence in his favor," she asked. "The circumstances surely seemed against Dion. Everybody condemned him. Tell me everything. How was it proved that there was no collusion between the father and son? Who testified for them?"
"Why, nobody testified on their side," said Judas, as if the need of such testimony had occurred to him for the first time. "My brothers were for condemning them both."
"And you had secret knowledge of their innocence?"
"None—and yet, Deborah, there were two things which persuaded me. The one was the bearing of the men. I cannot weigh arguments, but I know men. Goodness, honesty, honor—I feel these things in men. I have never been betrayed where I have given my confidence. Sincerity is like sunshine; it is its own evidence."
"True; and the other thing which persuaded you to Dion's innocence?" she asked.