They gazed at her with a
cold anger that was like fire burning behind a screen of ice. And the
ice made the fire more terrible.
His look bade her rise and stand before him, a culprit, but she would
not. She sat still, in the same chair where she had sat happily writing
to Vanno a few hours before. Though she trembled, she faced the Prince
without shrinking outwardly. Perhaps to Angelo's eyes she appeared
defiant.
"Does my brother know?" he asked.
"He knows--that I was at a convent-school." In spite of herself Mary
choked in the words. She stammered slightly, and a wave of giddiness
swept over her. With a supreme effort she controlled herself, looking up
at Angelo's tall figure, which to her loomed Titanic.
"I mean does he know the rest?"
"There is nothing else to know. I did not do any of those things Miss
Bland talked about."
"Very well. But you must see that you will have to prove that, before
you can show yourself worthy to be my brother's wife."
It was on Mary's lips to exclaim: "I can prove it easily!" But just in
time she remembered that, to prove her own innocence--as indeed she very
easily could--she would have to prove Marie's guilt. This could not be
avoided. The guilty one in throwing the blame upon another had been as
one who jumps into the sea to avoid fire. Mary could save her friend
from the waves only by giving up her own boat; for in that boat there
was not room for two.
Fear brushed the girl's spirit like the wing of a bat in the dark.
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