“There was no witchcraft about it. I knew her well. She was very beautiful and very loving, and I should have been surprised if your brother, being what he is, had not fallen in love with her.”
“But to marry her, lady—forgetting all he owed to his house and to his faith!”
“That also was inevitable, unless he had deliberately cut himself off from her at once. But I should say rather that it was he who bewitched her to her undoing. It was madness in her to consent to a secret marriage, and so I told her.”
Danaë’s eyes were still obstinate, and Zoe spoke impressively.
“Well, I can’t hope to convince you against your will. But your brother has far more reason to believe you a witch, and a malevolent one, than you had to think his wife one.”
Again the trembling came upon the girl. “Oh, lady, why?”
“Because his wife brought him nothing but good—except what was due to his own concealment of the marriage—and you have done him the most dreadful harm.”
Zoe turned away, and taking up a book, pretended to read, leaving Danaë to sob and shiver among the cushions. At last an inarticulate murmur called her back, and the girl seized her hand convulsively. “Lady mine, I am sorry; I wish I had not done it. But she was a schismatic, and they said she was a witch, and I believed it.”
“Then don’t believe anything so silly in future.”
“But my brother, lady. He believes that I——”