“Lucy Anserhoff!” echoed Marcus, in real amazement.  “I have a faint remembrance of an old lady by that name, and a pretty girl who was her daughter.  But as God is my judge, I never wronged her.”  Still there was that expression of guilt, which did not escape the scrutinizing glance of the inventor.

Marcus could have hunted up evidence to transfer the burden of the imputed wrong to the memory of the dead Aurelius.  But should he commit this profanation of the grave—­as he regarded it?  The voice of brotherly love—­for he had tenderly loved his erring brother—­said, “No.”  Would any amount of proof satisfy the nervous, doubting man before him?  He feared not.  Therefore Marcus Wilkeson did an act of awful solemnity, to prove his innocence.  And, because the doing of it thrilled his sensitive soul, as if he had thrust himself into the terrible presence of the Infinite, he weakly supposed that the most suspicious of men would unhesitatingly believe him.

He stood up, turned his eyes to the ceiling, raised both hands, and said, in a deep, trembling voice: 

“May God strike me dead, if I am guilty of this offence, or any like it, or of any thought of wrong toward your daughter.”

Marc as sat down, pale, and caught his breath quickly.  He was awestricken by his own act.

“That is a solemn adjuration,” said the inventor, after a short pause, “and should not be lightly taken.”

Marcus looked well at Mr. Minford.  Unbelief was written in every hard line and wrinkle of that white, deathlike face.  “Do you doubt me now?” he asked, sharply.  His sensitiveness on the subject of personal honor and veracity was painfully acute.  He had never told a lie in his life.

“Oh! no,” replied Mr. Minford; “I do not say that I doubt you” (in a tone expressive of the greatest doubt).  “I shall be truly glad to receive counter proofs from you.”

“You have heard my solemn appeal to God, sir.  Between gentlemen of honor that should be sufficient.”

The inventor’s thin lips (from which the last drops of blood had disappeared within the last half hour) curved in a satirical smile.  Marcus interpreted it as a reiterated doubt and a sneer upon his honor.  For the moment he lost control of his temper, and was about to make a remark that he would have regretted immediately after, when the door yielded to a gentle pressure, and Pet entered the room.

Her face was pale.  Her eyes were dull, and the lids hung droopingly, weighed down by twenty-four hours of wakefulness by the bedside of her sick teacher.  The faint blue crescents beneath—­those strange shadows of the grave, which sometimes seem the deepest when the eyes above are giving the brightest light—­imparted a frail, delicate beauty to her countenance.  They were the last master-touches of Nature in working out that portraiture of weaned and sleepy loveliness.

As she put her foot in the room, Mr. Minford and his guest telegraphed a truce with their eyes, and assumed a cheerful look.