The young man spoke kindly, soothingly, but a sudden flush mounted to his brow, and the hot cheek against his hand thrilled him with a bitter pain.
“But it was my evidence that told most against you. I tried not to tell it all; but, oh! they made me, with their cruel questions. If I had not had to say that I saw you, and that the bracelet was mine, perhaps, oh! perhaps that dreadful jury would not have said you were——”
She stopped suddenly and shuddered, sobbing bitterly.
She could not speak the obnoxious word.
“Their saying that I am guilty does not make me so, even though I must pay the penalty as if I were. But I have the consciousness within that I am innocent of the crime, and I shall live to prove it yet to you, Editha, and to all the world,” he answered, in clear, confident tones, with a proud uplifting of his head.
“You do not need to prove it to me, Earle; I know it already. I would take your word in the face of the whole world and a thousand juries,” Editha asserted, with unshaken confidence.
A glad light leaped into the young man’s eyes, and illuminated his whole face for the moment, at these words.
“Thank you,” he replied, in low, thrilling tones, and bending toward her: “it will be very pleasant to remember what you have said while I am——”
He stopped short—he could not finish the miserable sentence.
His sudden pause reminded the young girl anew of what was to come.