“Well, be it so.  I like it all the better so.  A mean man would not have hesitated at an oath, however determined he might have been not to keep it.  Whilst you—­I can trust you; you are a man of honor, and all is not lost yet.  Whence comes your aversion?  Is it a question of money, the count’s fortune?”

“Miss Brandon!”

“No, it is not that, I see.  I was quite sure of it.  What, then, can it be?  Tell me, sir, I beseech you! tell me something.”

What could he tell her?  Daniel remained silent.

“Very well,” said Sarah, clinching her teeth convulsively.  “I understand.”

She made a supreme effort not to break out in sobs; and big tears, resembling diamonds of matchless beauty, rolled slowly down from between her long, trembling eyelashes.

“Yes,” she said, “I understand.  The atrocious calumnies which my enemies have invented have reached you; and you have believed them.  They have, no doubt, told you that I am an adventuress, come from nowhere; that my father, the brave defender of the Union, exists only in the painting in my parlor; that no one knows where my income comes from; that Thorn, that noble soul, and Mrs. Brian, a saint upon earth, are vile accomplices of mine.  Confess, you have been told all that, and you have believed it.”

Grand in her wrath, her cheeks burning, her lips trembling, she rose, and added in a tone of bitter sarcasm,—­

“Ah!  When people are called upon to admire a noble deed, they refuse to believe, they insist upon inquiring before they admire, they examine carefully.  But, if they are told something bad, they dispense with that ceremony; however monstrous the thing may appear, however improbable it may sound, they believe it instantly.  They would not touch a child; but they do not hesitate to repeat a slander which dishonors a woman, and kills her as surely as a dagger.  If I were a man, and had been told that Miss Brandon was an adventuress, I would have been bent upon ascertaining the matter.  America is not so far off.  I should have soon found the ten thousand men who had served under Gen. Brandon, and they would have told me what sort of a man their chief had been.  I should have examined the oil-regions of Pennsylvania; and I would have learned there that the petroleum-wells belonging to M. Elgin, Mrs. Brian, and Miss Brandon produce more than many a principality.”

Daniel was amazed at the candor and the boldness with which this young girl approached the terrible subject.  To enable her to speak with such energy and in such a tone, she must either be possessed of unsurpassed impudence, or—­he had to confess it—­be innocent.

Overcome by the effort she had made, she had sunk back upon the sofa, and continued in a lower tone of voice, as if speaking to herself,—­