“You are quite, quite sure of that, John dear?”
“Not a hair of my head! Moreover, I have done no wrong, and have injured no man. Shall I swear it?”
“No, John!” cried Bella, laying her hand upon his lips, with a proud look. “Never to me!”
“But circumstances,” he went on “—I can, and I will, disperse them in a moment—have surrounded me with one of the strangest suspicions ever known. You heard Mr. Lightwood speak of a dark transaction?”
“Yes, John.”
“You are prepared to hear explicitly what he meant?”
“Yes, John.”
“My life, he meant the murder of John Harmon, your allotted husband.”
With a fast palpitating heart, Bella grasped him by the arm. “You cannot be suspected, John?”
“Dear love, I can be—for I am!”
There was silence between them, as she sat looking in his face, with the colour quite gone from her own face and lips. “How dare they!” she cried at length, in a burst of generous indignation. “My beloved husband, how dare they!”
He caught her in his arms as she opened hers, and held her to his heart. “Even knowing this, you can trust me, Bella?”