I promised, recklessly; and she ran her pretty fingers over the keys, drowning our voices, for other ears, under the soft ripple of the notes, while she questioned and I replied.
"As a stranger, and an unprejudiced person," she began, "how does this shameful charge against Dr. Bethel appear to you? Judging him as men judge men, do you think he could be guilty of such a deed?"
"Judging him by my limited knowledge of human nature," I replied, "I should say that Dr. Bethel is incapable of baseness in any form. In this case, he is certainly innocent."
She looked thoughtfully down at the white, gliding fingers, and said:
"We have seen so much of Dr. Bethel since he came to Trafton, that he seems quite like an old friend, and because of his being associated with father, it makes his trouble almost a personal matter. I do hope it will end without further complications."
She looked up in my face as if hoping that my judgment accorded with her wish, but I made no reply, finding silence easier and pleasanter than equivocation when dealing with a nature so frank and fearlessly truthful.
The game of whist being at an end, Miss Manvers arose almost immediately and declared it time to go. She had sent her phæton home, her house being less than a quarter of a mile from Dr. Barnard's, and according to the custom of informal Trafton, I promptly offered myself as escort, and was promptly and smilingly accepted.
"What a day this has been," said Miss Manvers, as the doctor's iron gate closed behind us. "Such a terrible charge to bring against Dr. Bethel. Do you really think," and, spite her evident intention to make the question sound common-place, I could detect the genuine anxiety in it, "Do you really think that it will—injure his practice to the extent of—driving him from Trafton?"
"You heard what he said, Miss Manvers."