“Aunt Rachel!” she said, bluntly, “you are a very good woman! the best and most forgiving human being I ever heard of.  I should not feel one particle of surprise to see you float up gently through the roof, at any minute—­cap, spectacles, and all—­translated to the society of your sister angels—­and no questions asked by St. Peter at the gate of Paradise!”

“My love!”

Well as she knew her erratic disposition and wild style of speech, Mrs. Sutton moved her hand toward the patient’s pulse.

“I am not raving!  I speak the words of truth and soberness—­very sad soberness, too!  Believing as you do that Frederic was once the cause of much sorrow to you and to one you loved, and having no reason to care one iota for me, but rather to distrust me, you nevertheless obey my call upon you for service, as if I had every right to make it.  And when here, you treat me just as you would Mabel, were her situation as deplorable, her need equal to mine.”

“Why shouldn’t I?” questioned Mrs. Sutton, simply.  “I have no ground for a quarrel with you.  And if I had—­well, the truth is, my dear, I have a poor memory for such things!”

Rosa caught at the scarcely perceptible emphasis upon the “You,” and disregarded the remainder of the remark.

“You cannot yet acquit Frederic of wrong-doing!  Indeed, Mrs. Sutton, he has been foully wronged among you.  It is not because he is my husband that I say this.  Mabel’s name has never passed his lips—–­ nor mine in his hearing, since I became his wife.  And every one of the family has been equally guarded when he was by.  I doubt, sometimes, if he has ever heard whom she married or where she lives—­so carefully has he shunned every reference to her or any of the Ridgeley people.  During the nine years we have lived together, he has given me no cause to suspect that he ever thinks of her, or laments the broken engagement.  If I have made myself wretched by imagining the contrary, it was my fault, not his—­my foolish, wicked jealousy.  I would scorn to imply a doubt of his integrity, by reminding him of the charges proferred against him by Winston Aylett, and believed by his sister—­much less ask him to contradict them.  I never put any faith in them from the outset.  It comforts me to recollect that my confidence in him stood fast when everybody else distrusted him—­my noble, slandered darling!  But my declaration of his innocence is founded upon his blameless life and upright principles.  No one could be with him as I have been, and doubt him.  He is a perfect man—­if there was ever a sinless mortal—­great-hearted, gentle, and sincere.  Do not I know this?  Have I not proved him to the utmost?”

Her rapid, impassioned declamation was ended by a copious flood of grief that provoked a frightful fit of coughing.  When this was subdued she was weaker than a year-old infant, and lay between stupor and dreaming for so long a time, that Mrs. Sutton became alarmed.