"Nothing. I believe in you just the same, and always shall."
"Thank you for so much, at any rate. But—you believe in me, in spite of what?"
"Oh! Lord Clandonald, how can I say it to you?" she exclaimed, driven to the wall.
"I have stood a good deal of evil speaking in my time," he said, in a grim undertone. "And if it helps to clear the atmosphere between us, I can stand more."
"It is not you only, I, too, have been the victim of cruel and slanderous sayings. I have not told my dear father, who is so unsuspicious. I wouldn't have him suffer as I have for the world. For the last twenty-four hours I have been receiving, in all sorts of odd ways that I cannot trace, anonymous notes about you and me that have cut me to the quick."
"Let me see one of them," he said, growing slightly pale.
"Do you think I'd keep the horrid, poisonous things? Not a half hour since I tore the whole batch into little bits, and threw them overboard. Perhaps ... I ought to tell you, they were written by a woman, who says——"
"Go on, Miss Winstanley."
"—That you wronged her cruelly and ruined her whole life."
"I thought so," he said, between his teeth. His face had grown so dark and bitter that Posey hardly knew the man. "There is only one who could—but how, in God's name, did she get aboard this ship?"