“Those notes of Pickering’s—I shall ask Mr. Glenarm to give them to you—as a mark of esteem from me.”
She stepped backward as though I had struck her.
“You risked much for them—for him”—I went on.
“Mr. Glenarm, I have no intention of discussing that, or any other matter with you—”
“It is better so—”
“But your accusations, the things you imply, are unjust, infamous!”
The quaver in her voice shook my resolution to deal harshly with her.
“If I had not myself been a witness—” I began.
“Yes; you have the conceit of your own wisdom, I dare say.”
“But that challenge to follow you, to break my pledge; my running away, only to find that Pickering was close at my heels; your visit to the tunnel in search of those notes,—don’t you know that those things were a blow that hurt? You had been the spirit of this woodland to me. Through all these months, from the hour I watched you paddle off into the sunset in your canoe, the thought of you made the days brighter, steadied and cheered me, and wakened ambitions that I had forgotten—abandoned —long ago. And this hideous struggle here,—it seems so idle, so worse than useless now! But I’m glad I followed you,—I’m glad that neither fortune nor duty kept me back. And now I want you to know that Arthur Pickering shall not suffer for anything that has happened. I shall make no effort to punish him; for your sake he shall go free.”