"But why?" she asked. "I have been acquitted--thanks partly to your own
evidence--and yet you of all women will not take me in! Do you mean to
tell me that you actually think I did it still?"
Rachel fully expected an affirmative. She was prepared for that opinion
now from all the world; but for once a surprise was in store for her.
The pale woman shifted her eyes, then raised them doggedly, and the look
in them brought a sudden glow to Rachel's heart.
"No, I don't think that, and never did," said the one independent
witness for the defence. "But others do, and I am too near where it
happened; it might empty my house and keep it empty."
Rachel seized her hand.
"Never mind, never mind," she whispered. "It is better, ten thousand
times, that you should believe in me, that any woman should! Thank you,
and God bless you, for that!"
She was turning away, when she faced about upon the steps, gazing past
the woman who believed in her, along the passage beyond, an unspoken
question beneath the tears in her eyes.
"He is not here," said the landlady, quickly.
"But he did get over it?"
"So we hope; but he was at death's door that morning, and for days and
weeks.
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