“No,” he answered resolutely, taking my hand and grasping it warmly. “No, Ralph; I know—I can see how you are suffering. You believed her to be a pure and honest woman—one above the common run—a woman fit for helpmate and wife. Well, I, too, must confess myself very much misled. I believed her to be all that you imagined; indeed, if her face be any criterion, she is utterly unspoiled by the world and its wickedness. In my careful studies in physiognomy I have found that very seldom does a perfect face like hers cover an evil heart. Hence, I confess, that this discovery has amazed me quite as much as it has you. I somehow feel——”
“I don’t believe it!” I cried, interrupting him. “I don’t believe, Ambler, that she murdered him—I can’t believe it. Her’s is not the face of a murderess.”
“Faces sometimes deceive,” he said quietly. “Recollect that a clever woman can give a truthful appearance to a lie where a man utterly fails.”
“I know—I know. But even with this circumstantial proof I can’t and won’t believe it.”
“Please yourself, my dear fellow,” he answered. “I know it is hard to believe ill of a woman whom one loves so devotedly as you’ve loved Ethelwynn. But be brave, bear up, and face the situation like a man.”
“I am facing it,” I said resolutely. “I will face it by refusing to believe that she killed him. The letters are plain enough. She was engaged secretly to old Courtenay, who threw her over in favour of her sister. But is there anything so very extraordinary in that? One hears of such things very often.”
“But the final letter?”
“It bears evidence of being written in the first moments of wild anger on realising that she had been abandoned in favour of Mary. Probably she has by this time quite forgotten the words she wrote. And in any case the fact of her living beneath the same roof, supervising the household, and attending to the sick man during Mary’s absence, entirely negatives any idea of revenge.”
Jevons smiled dubiously, and I myself knew that my argument was not altogether logical.
“Well?” I continued. “And is not that your opinion?”