Still, I asked myself, was it to blame? Was anyone to blame for
thinking her guilty after hearing the evidence? How could one escape
it? Why, even I----
Preposterous! I tried to reason calmly; to find an opening in the net.
Yet, how complete it was! The only point we had gained, so far, was
that the mysterious visitor had asked for Mr. Holladay, not for her
father--and what an infinitesimal point it was! Supposing there had
been a quarrel, an estrangement, would not she naturally have used
those very words? After all, did not the black eyes, the full lips,
the deep-colored cheeks bespeak a strong and virile temperament, depth
of emotion, capacity for swift and violent anger? But what cause could
there be for a quarrel so bitter, so fierce, that it should lead to
such a tragedy? What cause? And then, suddenly, a wave of light broke
in upon me. There could be only one--yes, but there _could_ be one!
Capacity for emotion meant capacity for passion. If she had a lover,
if she had clung to him despite her father! I knew his reputation for
severity, for cold and relentless condemnation. Here was an
explanation, certainly!
And then I shook myself together angrily. Here was I, reasoning along
the theory of her guilt--trying to find a motive for it! I remembered
her as I had seen her often, driving with her father; I recalled the
many stories I had heard of their devotion; I reflected how her whole
life, so far as I knew it, pointed to a nature singularly calm and
self-controlled, charitable and loving.
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