“Then you don’t believe in him?” She spoke coldly, and she was fully alert now.
“God knows I wish I could.”
“Stephen!” she cried, rising indignantly, recoiling from him in amazement.
“But I can’t,” Pryde added doggedly. He was furious now.
“Well, I can and do,” the girl said icily. “And I am going to stand by him, no matter what happens. I know he is innocent. But if he were guilty, a thousand times guilty, it would make no difference to me, none at all in my love. I’d only care for him the more, stand by him the more, and for ever and ever.”
The fierce color rushed to Pryde’s face, and his hands knotted together in pain.
“Helen,” he pled, “you are making things very difficult for me.”
“I am sorry, Stephen,” she said a little perfunctorily; “but I love Hugh,” she added proudly. “He is all I have in the world.”
“You don’t understand,” he retorted sternly. “I promised your father to take care of you. I mean to keep that promise.”
“No, I do not understand,” Helen said haughtily. She, too, was infuriated now.