"Pshaw!" he exclaimed lightly, but keeping at a wary distance from Harding's reach. "Why should I yield to rage? My prowess is well known—and, after all, this worthy gentleman speaks in ignorance. Sir," he added, changing his tone with elaborate and chivalrous grace, "I speak of what I know, and speak only with the best of motives. But it is due to you that I offer to make good my words. I can absolutely prove that what I have said is true."
"Prove it, how?"
"By enabling you to witness for yourself that which justifies what I say."
"And you can do this?"
"Almost to a certainty, and probably this very night."
Harding hesitated. To take the course proposed seemed like doubt, and doubt was unworthy. To refuse to take that course might subject Jane to calumny, which he might on the other hand nip in the bud. Presently he spoke:
"What do you propose?"
"That you go with me at once, and judge for yourself. We may fail tonight, but if so, our success to-morrow will be all but certainty."
The man's air of conviction was impressive, and Harding, fearful, yet hoping that he might unearth some strange mistake or deception, agreed to the plan proposed. It was settled that the two should meet an hour later at the "Bella Union," and they parted now with that understanding. Bellario, however, took occasion before leaving his companion to make his insinuations so far specific as to tell him that Miss Tinsel had made the acquaintance of a certain handsome, dark-eyed man, who had followed the troupe ever since it had last been at Bullion Flat; that this man evidently admired the girl very much, and that she had encouraged his advances in the most unmistakable manner; that she had gone so far as to receive her admirer at her room in the hotel, and that at so late an hour as to excite the censure of the not over-prudish Miss De Montague; and that, in fine, Miss Tinsel's hitherto spotless name had been so tarnished by the events of the last fortnight as to make it certain none would ever again think her the pure girl she had always hitherto been held to be.
With the blood tingling through every vein, with nerves at extreme tension, and a heart full of bitterness, Chester Harding passed away. Something told him that the tale, black and dismal as it was, was likewise true. When Jane told him the story of her father's crime and its punishment, Harding felt as if there had fallen between him and his prospect of happiness a veil that made it look doubtful and unreal. The girl's firmness in telling him the truth, and the assertion of her opinion as to the proper bearing and consequence of that truth on her relations with Harding, had assuredly deeply impressed and comforted him. It was something to face, after all, and even in California, this wedding the child of a murderer and felon. Yet her own perfect goodness was the justification and would be the reward of such an act. But when Jane's goodness itself was in question it was no wonder that Harding's heart sank within him. He was no coward, but his experience had taught him distrust; and he waited for the stipulated hour to pass in an agony of doubt and pain.