Guilty? Of course she was guilty; and I only wish we could try her again
and hang her yet! Now don't pretend you sympathize with a woman like
that," he said to Rachel, with a look like a nudge; "you haven't been
married long enough; and for Heaven's sake don't refuse that bird! It's
the best that can be got this time of year, though that's not saying
much; but wait till the grouse season, Mrs. Steel! I have a moor here in
the dales, keep a cellar full of them, and eat 'em as they drop off the
string."
"Well?" said Rachel, turning to Langholm when her host became a busy
man once more.
"I should make her guilty," said the novelist; "and she would marry a
man who believed in her innocence, and he wouldn't care two pins when
she told him the truth in the last chapter, and they would live happily
ever afterwards. Nobody would touch the serial rights. But that would be
a book!"
"Then do you think she really was guilty?"
And Rachel waited while he shrugged, her heart beating for no good
reason that she knew, except that she rather liked Mr. Langholm, and did
not wish to cease liking him on the spot. But it was to him that the
answer was big with fate; and he trifled and dallied with the issue of
the moment, little dreaming what a mark it was to leave upon his life,
while the paradox beloved of the literary took shape on his tongue.
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