It was a change for which Deborah was in no wise prepared.  She showed her amazement as ingenuously as a child, and he, observing it, remarked in a different tone from any he had used yet: 

“You do not look well.  You are still suffering from the distress and confusion into which this wretched swoon has thrown you.  Or can it be that you are not yet convinced of our wisdom in ignoring this diabolic attack upon one whose reputation is as dear to us as our own?  If that is so, and I see that it is, let me remind you of a fact which cannot be new to you if it is to others of happier memories, that no accusation of this kind, however plausible—­and this is not plausible—­can hold its own for a day without evidence to back it.  And there is no evidence against my son in this ancient matter of my friend Etheridge’s violent death, save the one coincidence known to many, that he chanced to be somewhere in the ravine at that accursed hour.  A petty point upon which to hang this late and elaborate insult of suspicion!” And his voice rang out in a laugh, but not as it would have rung, or as Deborah thought it would have rung, had his mind been as free as his words.

When it had quite ceased, Deborah threw off the last remnant of physical as well as moral weakness, and deliberately rose to her feet.  She believed she understood him now; and she respected the effort he was making, and would have seconded it gladly had she dared.

But she did not dare.  If he were really as ignorant as he appeared of the extent of the peril threatening Oliver’s good name; if he had cheated himself during these long years into supposing that the secret which had undermined his own happiness was an unshared one, and that his own conduct since that hour he had characterised as accursed, had given no point to the charges they had just heard hurled against his son, then he ought to be undeceived and that right speedily.  Evidence did exist connecting Oliver with this crime; evidence as sure, nay, yet surer, than that raised against her husband; and no man’s laughter, no, not even his father’s—­ least of all his father’s—­could cover up the fact or avail against the revelations which must follow, now that the scent was on.  Honouring as she did the man before her, understanding both his misery and the courage he displayed in this superhuman effort to hide his own convictions, she gathered up all her resources, and with a resolution no less brave than his, said firmly: 

“You are too much respected in this town, Judge Ostrander, for any collection of people, however thoughtless or vile, to so follow the lead of a lowdown miscreant as to greet you to your face with these damaging assertions, unless they thought they had evidence, and good evidence, too, with which to back these assertions.”

It was the hurling of an arrow poisoned at the point; the launching of a bomb into the very citadel of his security.  Had he burst into outbreak—­gripped her again or fiercely shown her the door, she would not have been astonished.  Indeed, she was prepared for some such result, but it did not come.  On the contrary, his answer was almost mild, though tinged for the first time with a touch of that biting sarcasm for which he had once been famous.