Behind
the shrub she waited as patiently as ever.)
"I take a more merciful view," Julian answered. "I believe she is
acting under a delusion. I don't blame her: I pity her."
"You pity her?" As Mercy repeated the words, she tore off
Julian's hands the last few lengths of wool left, and threw the
imperfectly wound skein back into the basket. "Does that mean,"
she resumed, abruptly, "that you believe her?"
Julian rose from his seat, and looked at Mercy in astonishment.
"Good heavens, Miss Roseberry! what put such an idea as that into
your head?"
"I am little better than a stranger to you," she rejoined, with
an effort to assume a jesting tone. "You met that person before
you met with me. It is not so very far from pitying her to
believing her. How could I feel sure that you might not suspect
me?"
"Suspect _you!_" he exclaimed. "You don't know how you distress,
how you shock me. Suspect _you!_ The bare idea of it never
entered my mind. The man doesn't live who trusts you more
implicitly, who believes in you more devotedly, than I do."
His eyes, his voice, his manner, all told her that those words
came from the heart. She contrasted his generous confidence in
her (the confidence of which she was unworthy) with her
ungracious distrust of him.
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