"You will have to stay a long time," said she, with a sneer. "Why, look at Elaine Brabourne! Look at her cowering there! Doesn't her attitude speak for itself? Do you wish to be better acquainted with the situation? Will it satisfy you to be told that a fortune of eighty thousand pounds comes to this girl on her brother's death, and that it is only a week since she was made aware of the fact? And if I say further that she wants to marry a beggarly artist, and that only my little Godfrey's frail life stood between——"
"Ottilie, Ottilie, hold your tongue, my dear girl," said Frederick, nervously. "You are overwrought, you must take some rest, and leave me to search out this affair."
"Leave you!" She wrenched herself away scornfully. "Leave you to do it? Why, you could be made to say black was white in ten minutes by anyone who would discuss the question with you. Well"—to Percivale—"are you still mad enough to say that the matter admits of a doubt?"
The perfect quiet of his answer was a most complete contrast to her violence.
"It is unfortunate," he said, "that the consideration of the same circumstances should lead us to diametrically opposite conclusions; but so it is. You consider that the young lady's present appearance and attitude argues guilt; to me it strongly indicates innocence. This shows how necessary it is that I should have proof of the truth of my view, which proof I shall immediately take steps to find."
Henry Fowler roused himself; his face seemed to have grown ten years older during the last half-hour.
"I am grateful to you, sir," he said to Percivale, with a piteous humility. "Elsa, my darling, you must go home at once."
Raising her lovely head from his shoulder, she stood upright, for the first time since her accusation. She looked straight at the stranger, holding out her hands.
"It is false—every word they said about me," she faltered. "I could tell you——" here her voice broke.
Holding his hat in his left hand, he grasped both her small hands in his right, and, bending low, kissed them respectfully.