“It is false!” burst with startling almost overwhelming power from the lips of Emmeline, as she sprung with the strength of agony from her seat, and stood with the suddenness of a vision, before her parents, a bright hectic spot burning on either cheek, rendering her usually mild eyes painfully brilliant.  She had sat as if spell-bound, drinking in every word.  She knew the tale was false, but yet each word had fallen like brands of heated iron on her already scorching brain; that they should dare to breathe such a tale against him, whose fair fame she knew was unstained, link his pure name with infamy; and her father, too, believed it.  She did not scream, though there was that within which longed for such relief.  She did not faint, though every limb had lost its power.  A moment’s strength and energy alike returned, and she bounded forward.  “It is false!” she again exclaimed, and her parents started in alarm at her agonized tone; “false as the false villain that dared stain the fair fame of another with his own base crime.  Arthur Myrvin is not the father of that child; Arthur Myrvin was not the destroyer of Mary Brookes.  Go and ask Nurse Langford:  she who hung over poor Mary’s dying bed; who received from her own cold lips the name of the father of her child; she who was alone near her when she died.  Ask her, and she will tell you the wretch, who has prejudiced all minds against the good, the pure, the noble; the villain, the cruel despicable villain, who rested not till his base arts had ruined the—­the—­virtuous; that Jefferies, the canting hypocrite, the wretched miscreant, who has won all hearts because he speaks so fair, he, he alone is guilty.  Put the question to him; let Nurse Langford ask him if the dying spoke falsely when she named him, and his guilt will be written on his brow.  Arthur Myrvin did visit that cottage; Mary had confessed a crime, she said not what, and implored his prayers; he soothed her bodily and mental sufferings, he robbed death of its terrors, and his only grief at leaving the village was, that she would miss his aid, for that crime could not be confessed to another; and they dare to accuse him of sin, he who is as good, as pure, as—­” For one second she paused, choked by inward agony, but ere either her father or mother could address her, she continued, in an even wilder tone,—­“Why did Arthur Myrvin leave this neighbourhood? why did he go hence so suddenly—­so painfully? because, because he loved me—­because he knew that I returned his love, and he saw the utter hopelessness that surrounded us, and he went forth to do his duty; he left me to forget him, to obtain peace in forgetfulness of one I may never see again—­forgetfulness! oh, not till my brain ceases to throb will that be mine.  He thought to leave me with his love unspoken, but the words came, and that very hour we parted.  He loved me, he knew I could not be his, and it was for this his living was resigned, for this he departed;