“Ah,” said Muriel, coolly, almost carelessly, “he set you against Harrington, did he?”
“He did,” replied Wentworth.
“And yet you loved Harrington,” she continued, “you loved him truly. But Witherlee could set you against him.”
“He could,” faltered Wentworth. “I own it to my shame, but he could.”
“And now, Richard,” she said, gravely, “answer me this. Would Emily be more to blame for having been set against you by Witherlee, than you were to blame for having been set against Harrington by him?”
Wentworth looked at her, and colored.
“No,” he faltered. “I could not blame her if her feeling against me arose from anything said by Witherlee. But what right have I to suppose that he has said anything against me?”
“Richard Wentworth,” she cried, starting from her chair, and her face lit, and her voice rang clear and free, “never dare to condemn Emily till you know that this is not so. Never condemn any person on any evidence till you have given that person a hearing. Here is a man who goes about, dropping the hint, the innuendo, the shrug, the hum, the ha, the meaning look, for aught I know the downright wicked lie, all the poisons used by calumny, and while you know him to be on terms of intimacy with Emily, you venture to suppose that he is guiltless of having poisoned her mind against you. Permit me to say that you venture to suppose too much. I would not condemn even him unheard, but what we know, though it is not enough for proof, is quite enough to create a presumption. You have found him fomenting strife between you and Harrington; you know him to have widened the breach between you and Emily. These things show him no friend of yours. And between the evening of your happy parting with Emily and the morning of coldness and alienation, he spent several hours conversing with her. Ominous link, Richard! Find out what it means. Do not assume that she meant to trifle with you. I know better. I know Emily Ames better than you do, and I know that a woman more honorable and loyal in her love never breathed. Go, Richard Wentworth! imitate the magnanimity of Harrington and never let me have it to say that the manliness of your friend was more than that you showed to the woman that you love!”
Wentworth rose from his chair, his color flashing and failing, an awful sense of the justice of Muriel’s speech mingling with an awful suspicion of Witherlee, and his love for Emily rushing like a torrent on his heart.