Elinor herself was almost as doubtful as her cousin whether she really lived and breathed. It seemed rather as though she had already tasted the bitterness of death, and now moved about, a pale, miserable ghost in a land where all was ghastly and miserable. Even Cecil seemed unreal, and that worried her more than all the rest. In the last three days the touch of those little arms had in some way lost its power to comfort, and the childish presence had grown irksome because it forbade her giving way to the bursts of wild weeping which had alternated with stony despair.
Just now Cecil was pressing close to her side and whispering in her ear,--
"Mamma, did Thir Chrithtopher Neville kill the priest? Dost thou think he did it?"
"And Couthin Mary thinks so; but I do not."
"Because he promised me a bow and arrowth and he knew thou wouldst not let me take a gift from a murderer."
The quick stab of the word was intolerable. Elinor thrust the child away from her side with a swift, tragic gesture; then, at sight of the angry flush in his cheeks and the grieved wonder in his eyes, she caught him to her heart again close, and bowed her head over his curls.
The only person who caught the meaning of the action was Peggy Neville, who sat in a corner a little back of the Governor's chair. Heart reads heart in crises like these, and sympathy is second sight. Her first feeling was a quick thrill and a desire to run across the room and kiss that cold proud face with the swollen eyelids. Then the blood of the Nevilles, proud every whit as that of the Calverts, surged angrily back to her heart. "She to dare to doubt him! Why, nobody thinks great things of me, but I would never desert any one that I cared even the least little bit about. I'd stick all the closer when people turned against him, and as for evidence, what is the use of being a woman if you are going to be influenced by such things as that!"
Oh, little Peggy! women do not own the only minds superior to evidence. From across the hall a young man is watching every expression of your face, feeling sure that your brother is innocent because you think him so--confident that Governor Brent is a cold, hard man, eager to believe evil of a friend, and vowing that as for him, Romney Huntoon, his sword, his honor, his life itself are at the service of Christopher Neville, with whom he has scarcely spoken, and of Christopher's sister Peggy whom he has known for a matter of ten days.