She was very pale, and he thought she had a careworn look, as of one who had spent anxious days and sleepless nights. He took the chair to which she motioned him, and they sat opposite each other for some moments in silence, she looking down and playing nervously with a massive ivory paper-knife which was lying on the table at which she had been writing when he entered. Suddenly she lifted her eyes to his face—pathetic eyes which had looked at him once before in his life with just that appealing look.
"It is very cruel of you to believe my cousin guilty of murder," she said, coming straight to the point. "You knew my mother. Surely you must know our race well enough to know that it does not produce murderers."
"Who told you that I believed such a thing?"
"Your own actions have told me. Bothwell has been cut by the people about here; and you, who should have been his staunch friend and champion, you have kept away from Penmorval as if this house were infected, in order to avoid meeting my cousin."
"I cannot tell you a lie, Mrs. Wyllard, even to spare your feelings," replied Heathcote, deeply moved, "and yet I think you must know that I would do much to save you pain. Yes, I must admit that it has seemed to me that circumstances pointed to your cousin, as having been directly or indirectly concerned in that girl's death. His conduct became so strange at that date—so difficult to account for upon any other hypothesis."
"Has your experience of life never made you acquainted with strange coincidences?" asked Dora. "Is it impossible, or even improbable, that Bothwell should have some trouble upon his mind—a trouble which arose just about the time of that girl's death? Everything must have a date; and his anxieties happen to date from that time. I know his frank open nature, and how heavily any secret would weigh upon him."
"You believe, then, that he has a secret?"
"Yes—there is something—some entanglement which prevented his answering Mr. Distin's very impertinent questions."
"Has he confided his trouble to you? Has he convinced you of his innocence?"
"He had no occasion to do that. I never believed him guilty—I never could believe him guilty of such a diabolical crime."