Page:Anna Katharine Green - Leavenworth Case.djvu/239

Rh I could only ejaculate, in my sudden wonder and dismay.

"You have shown her to be secret, sly, and unprincipled; capable of wronging those to whom she was most bound, her uncle and her husband."

"You put it very strongly," said I, conscious of a shocking discrepancy between this description of Eleanore’s character and all that I had preconceived in regard to it.

"No more so than your own conclusions from this story warrant me in doing." Then, as I sat silent, murmured low, and as if to himself: "If the case was dark against her before, it is doubly so with this supposition established of her being the woman secretly married to Mr. Clavering."

"And yet," I protested, unable to give up my hope without a struggle; "you do not, cannot, believe the noble-looking Eleanore guilty of this horrible crime?"

"No," he slowly said; "you might as well know right here what I think about that. I believe Eleanore Leavenworth to be an innocent woman."

"You do? Then what," I cried, swaying between joy at this admission and doubt as to the meaning of his former expressions, "remains to be done?"

Mr. Gryce quietly responded: "Why, nothing but to prove your supposition a false one."