"Let me go back for a moment, Mr. Dexter, to past times at Gleninch," I said. "You agree with me in believing Eustace to be absolutely innocent of the crime for which he was tried. Your evidence at the Trial tells me that."
He paused over his work, and looked at me with a grave and stern attention which presented his face in quite a new light.
"That is our opinion," I resumed. "But it was not the opinion of the Jury. Their verdict, you remember, was Not Proven. In plain English, the Jury who tried my husband declined to express their opinion, positively and publicly, that he was innocent. Am I right?"
Instead of answering, he suddenly put his embroidery back in the basket, and moved the machinery of his chair, so as to bring it close by mine.
"Who told you this?" he asked.
"I found it for myself in a book."
Thus far his face had expressed steady attention--and no more. Now, for the first time, I thought I saw something darkly passing over him which betrayed itself to my mind as rising distrust.
"Ladies are not generally in the habit of troubling their heads about dry questions of law," he said. "Mrs. Eustace Macallan the Second, you must have some very powerful motive for turning your studies that way."
"I have a very powerful motive, Mr. Dexter My husband is resigned to the Scotch Verdict His mother is resigned to it. His friends (so far as I know) are resigned to it--"
"Well?"
"Well! I don't agree with my husband, or his mother, or his friends. I refuse to submit to the Scotch Verdict."
The instant I said those words, the madness in him which I had hitherto denied, seemed to break out. He suddenly stretched himself over his chair: he pounced on me, with a hand on each of my shoulders; his wild eyes questioned me fiercely, frantically, within a few inches of my face.
"What do you mean?" he shouted, at the utmost pitch of his ringing and resonant voice.
A deadly fear of him shook me. I did my best to hide the outward betrayal of it. By look and word, I showed him, as firmly as I could, that I resented the liberty he had taken with me.
"Remove your hands, sir," I said, "and retire to your proper place."
He obeyed me mechanically. He apologized to me mechanically. His whole mind was evidently still filled with the words that I had spoken to him, and still bent on discovering what those words meant.