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t that you--" and stopped. "I did not dream that I--" and stopped again. Suddenly her whole form quivered. "Oh, I see! You have mistrusted me from the first; the appearances against me have been too strong"; and she sank inert, lost in the depths of her shame and humiliation. "Ah, but now I am forsaken!" she murmured. The appeal went to my heart. Starting forward, I exclaimed: "Miss Leavenworth, I am but a man; I cannot see you so distressed. Say that you are innocent, and I will believe you, without regard to appearances." Springing erect, she towered upon me. "Can any one look in my face and accuse me of guilt?" Then, as I sadly shook my head, she hurriedly gasped: "You want further proof!" and, quivering with an extraordinary emotion, she sprang to the door. "Come, then," she cried, "come!" her eyes flashing full of resolve upon me. Aroused, appalled, moved in spite of myself, I crossed the room to where she stood; but she was already in the hall. Hastening after her, filled with a fear I dared not express, I stood at the foot of the stairs; she was half-way to the top. Following her into the hall' above, I saw her form standing erect and noble at the door of her uncle's bedroom. "Come!" she again cried, but this time in a calm and reverential tone; and flinging the door open before her, she passed in. Subduing the wonder which I felt, I slowly followed her. There was no light in the room of death, but the flame of the gas-burner, at the far end of the hall, shone weirdly in, and by its glimmering I beheld her kneeling at the shrouded bed, her head bowed above that of the murdered man, her hand upon his breast. "You have said that if I declared my innocence you would believe me," she exclaimed, lifting her head as I entered. "See here," and laying her cheek against the pallid brow of her dead benefactor, she kissed the clay-cold lips softly, wildly, agonizedly, then, leaping to her feet, cried, in a subdued but thrilling tone: "Could I do that if I were guilty? Would not the breath freeze on my lips, the blood congeal in my veins, and my heart faint at this contact? Son of a father loved and reverenced, can you believe me to be a woman stained with crime when I can do this?" and kneeling again she cast her arms over and about that inanimate form, looking in my face at the same time with an expression no mortal touch could paint, nor tongue describe. "In olden times," she went on, "they used to say th
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