But
maybe if you sent Miss Bland and her detective friend out of the house
now, you might sometimes think of what you've heard, in spite of
yourself--in the night, when dreadful thoughts seem almost true--and
that would kill me. Besides, these women might spread tales. And that
would distress your father. I must justify myself--not in your eyes;
that isn't needed; but in theirs. I must do it--even at the awful
expense of sacrificing another. Two names very much alike have made this
mischief. Angelo, it was Mary Grant who was at that convent-school in
Scotland, where Miss Jewett must have been spying for your cousin. I'd
have saved poor Mary if I could. But you come first with me--first,
before everything and every one. Ask her if what I say of her is not the
truth."
Mary turned and looked at her friend. She was very still. Her heart,
which had pounded in her bosom, moving the laces of her blouse, might
almost have ceased beating. She appeared hardly to breathe. But through
her large, soft eyes her soul seemed to pour itself out in a crystalline
ray, piercing to the soul of Marie. And to the woman who had used the
heart of her friend for a shield came a sudden and terrible thought. She
remembered a passage in the Gospels where Judas led the Roman soldiers
by night to the garden of Gethsemane, and Jesus, speaking no word,
turned and looked at the betrayer. It was as if she saw a picture of
this betrayal, beside the picture of herself leaning forward in the red
hammock, with Angelo beside her and Mary's clear eyes questioning hers.
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