Perdita looked at him curiously. “Sir Francis,” she said, “do you admit all these accusations? Remember, I haven’t read these letters; they are sealed still; I have no sure grounds yet for my suspicions. For all I could prove, you may be innocent—unless these letters are the proof. Are they or not?”
“I suppose they are,” was his reply, in the same tone as before. “I don’t know what else they can be. Do what you like, my dear.”
“Well, we shall see,” said Perdita, after a pause. She turned and walked to the door and opened it. The door of Mr. Grant’s room, on the other side of the landing, was ajar, and Marion was visible within. Perdita beckoned to her. Marion probably supposed that the Marquise was going to inform her of Tom’s death, for she came forward at once with a face full of tender compassion and sympathy. The influences of the past night and morning had wrought an effect in Marion’s nature and aspect like the blossoming-out of a flower, whose delicate freshness had heretofore been veiled within a rough calyx. Such changes are scarcely to be described in set terms, belonging, as they do, rather to the spirit than to the body; the outward signs seemed limited to a certain ennobling of the forms and movements of the face, a soft shining of the eyes, and an eloquent modulation of the voice. The imperious flush and angry preoccupation of Perdita’s countenance, while they emphasized her beauty, put her on a level of attractiveness inferior to Marion’s at this moment, despite the latter’s comparative plainness.
“Can anything be done to help?” Marion asked as she came in. But as soon as she caught sight of Sir Francis she paused and murmured, “Ah, poor soul! I wish I could comfort him.”
“He seems resigned,” said Perdita, ungently. “Death alters us all, Marion, whether we die or survive. I am resigned, too; though my lover is dead in this room, and my father in that!”
“Mr. Grant....”
“Yes, Mr. Grant—Charles Grantley, my father; who was accused of high crimes and misdemeanors, and driven into exile, and who came back to England to see his daughter and be murdered by a footpad. You were fond of him, were you not?”
“Whoever he was, he committed no crime,” said Marion loftily.
“Why, so I think. But up to this time it has been made to appear otherwise. If he was not guilty, he has been greatly wronged, has he not?”
Marion seemed about to answer impetuously; but her eyes fell upon Sir Francis, and she compressed her lips and was silent.