Smothering a long drawn sigh, which his pride throttled, Mr. Dunbar rose and stood beside his fiancee.

“You have been feeling her pulse, how is the fever?” asked Leo.

“About as high as it can mount.  The pulse is frightfully rapid.  I did not even attempt to count it.”

“Mrs. Singleton tells me she is entirely unconscious—­recognizes no one.”

“At times, I think she has partly lucid glimpses; for instance, a little while ago she called me ‘Tiberius’, the same appellation she unaccountably bestowed on me the day of her preliminary examination.  Evidently she associates me with every cruel, brutal monster, and even in delirium maintains her aversion.”

Miss Gordon’s hand stole into his, pressing it gently in mute attestation of sympathy.  After a moment, she said in a low tone: 

“She is very beautiful.  What a noble, pure face?  How exquisitely turned her white throat, and wrists, and hands.”

He merely inclined his head in assent.

“It seems a profanation to connect the idea of crime with so lovely and refined a woman.  Lennox?”

He turned, and looked into her brown eyes, which were misty with tears.

“Well, my dear Leo, what is burdening your generous heart?”

“Do you, can you, believe her guilty?  Her whole appearance is a powerful protest.”

“Appearances are sometimes fatally false.  I think you told me, that the purest and loveliest face, guileless as an angel’s, that you saw in Europe, was a portrait of Vittoria Accoramboni; yet she was veritably the ‘White Devil’, ’beautiful as the leprosy, dazzling as the lightning’.  Do I believe her guilty?  From any other lips than yours, I should evade the question; but I proudly acknowledge your right to an expression of my opinion, when—­”

“I withdraw the question, because I arrogate no ‘rights’.  I merely desire the privilege of sympathizing, if possible, with your views; of sharing your anxiety in a matter involving such vital consequences.  Privilege is the gift of affection; right, the stern allotment of law.  Tell me nothing now; I shall value much more the privilege of receiving your confidence unsolicited.”

He took both her hands, drew her close to him, and looked steadily down into her frank tender eyes.

“Thank you, my dear Leo.  Only your own noble self could so delicately seek to relieve me from a painful embarrassment; but our relations invest you with both rights and privileges, which for my sake at least, I prefer you should exercise.  You must allow me to conclude my sentence; you are entitled to my opinion—­when matured.  As far as I am capable of judging, the evidence against her is—­ overwhelmingly condemnatory.  I thought so before her arrest; believed it when her preliminary examination ended, and subsequent incidents strengthen and confirm that opinion; yet a theory has dawned upon me, that may possibly lighten her culpability.