“You cannot possibly know whether he is innocent or guilty,” said Miss Prince coldly. “Sit down, my dear. We’ll have tea in a moment.”
“He is innocent,” cried the other passionately. “I know Harry Garlett far, far better than I have ever admitted—even to you!”
Miss Prince’s heart seemed to leap in her breast. Was she at last to be positively assured of something which no one but herself had ever suspected, with the one exception, maybe, of Dr. Maclean?
Agatha Cheale sat staring before her, a look of terrible suffering in her eyes.
The older woman at last ventured: “You mean, my dear, that there were love passages between you? I always suspected it.”
“No!” almost screamed Agatha Cheale, starting up from her chair. “There were no love passages between us. What love there was was on my side—my side alone.”
And then she broke into bitter sobs. “I’m a wicked woman, a wicked woman——”
“Nonsense, my dear! If there have been no love passages, you are not a wicked woman,” said practical Miss Prince.
She walked over to where her friend still stood, a dreadful look of rigid misery on her face.
“Sit down,” she said quietly, taking up the other’s hot, nerveless hand. “Sit down, Agatha. You’re in a high fever, I do believe.”