"I'm accused of murder, Mary. Do you understand? Murder! I was never jealous of him, and yet men said that you and he were to be wedded. You know all about it?"
"Yes, I know," she said.
"And you believe I'm guilty, don't you?"
"Guilty!" The girl laughed as she spoke. "Guilty! I believe in my own guilt rather than yours."
"But I'm going to be hanged for it," he said. "The knife which was found in his heart, is my knife. Don't you see?"
"I see everything," she replied. "I see nothing. But you guilty!" And again she laughed.
"You don't believe it, then? You have seen what the newspapers have said? You have read every bit of damning evidence against me? You know that I have been lampooned in a thousand newspapers? You know that I have been discussed by every pothouse villain in the land? And it is said that there is not one link wanting in the chain that binds me to the scaffold."
"I don't know, I don't care about that," she replied. "You are as innocent as the angels in heaven. Why, Paul, if all the juries in the land were to condemn you; if all the newspapers in the world were to lampoon you; if your best friends told me they had seen you do it, I would not believe it."
"Then you believe me innocent?" And his voice was tremulous with joy.
"I don't believe," was her reply. "I know."