Page:Richardson - 2835 Mayfair (1907).djvu/308



the release of the prisoner, public opinion underwent a change. Not a great change, but a slight modification. Nothing had been elucidated with regard to the mystery. How could the body have got into the cupboard—the cupboard of which Miss Clive alone possessed the key? How did Sir Clifford Oakleigh leave her his huge fortune? After all, she could not be a nice woman. But then the world was full of women who could not by any possibility be nice women. Besides, she had suffered terribly. She was a cripple for life. Harding was an honourable man. Harding had stood by her side in her peril. But would he marry her? If he married her, the public thought that he, as her counsel, knowing, as they assumed, all her secrets, would be providing a verdict of not guilty. Would he marry her or would he not?

One day as she lay on the sofa in Pembroke Street he called to see her. Nothing was altered in the room. The same servants were in the house.

He sat down by her side. The colour was beginning to come back to her cheeks.