“ Mr. Hartright! I hope you are not unjust enough to let that infamous letter influence you?”

I felt the blood rush into my cheeks, for I knew that it had influenced me.

“I hope not,” I answered confusedly. “Perhaps I had no right to ask the question.”

“I am not sorry you asked it,” she said, “for it enables me to do justice to Sir Percival’s reputation. Not a whisper, Mr. Hartright, has ever reached me, or my family, against him. He has fought successfully two contested elections, and has come out of the ordeal unscathed. A man who can do that, in England, is a man whose character is established.”