"Then Mrs. Withey is innocent, too," said Doctor McMurray. "Don't you make it out so?"
Mrs. Trent looked up sharply. It seemed as though she had for the moment forgotten her lesser trouble in the new consciousness of the greater. The mention of the other woman's name brought back all the profound sense of wrong which she knew she had suffered at her hands.
"Mrs. Withey—innocent!" she gasped.
"Yes, she is innocent, and you have the power of saving her life."
"Doctor McMurray, that woman robbed me of my husband—both of his love and of his memory." Mrs. Trent was in deadly earnest.
"But—she is innocent, and you can save her from a wretch's death," the old man repeated.
"Save her—her, who stands in my mind for all that I ought to hate?"
"Mrs. Trent," Doctor McMurray said in a low voice, "you ought to hate no-one, not even if he uses you as Mrs. Withey has used you. If we keep on hating the clouds will never lift."
Mrs. Trent rose heavily from her chair and labored from her window that she might look out across the valley toward the Peak. Her voice was hoarse as she answered:
"Oh, I'm afraid the clouds will never lift. The hatred of that woman is like a fog which closes in upon my soul, and shuts off every beam of sunshine. I can't see through it, and the heaviness of it chokes me. The clouds will never lift."