In her eyes was a helpless look, very different from that which she had given not so many days before when, with Orlando Guise behind her, she had defied her aged husband in his doorway, and her defiance had moved him from her path.

Then she had been inspired by the fact that the man she loved was near her, that she had been wrongfully accused and was ready to fight.

Afterwards, however, when she was alone, the sterile presence of Joel Mazarine, his merciless eyes, his hopeless religious tyranny, had worn upon her as his past violence had never done.
"Wicked!" Did this man, then, believe her guilty?
Did he, of all men, think that the night upon the prairie alone with Orlando had been her undoing?
Had not the brother of Rigby the chemist borne witness with his own eyes to her complete innocence?
If the Young Doctor disbelieved, then indeed she was undone.
"You don't think that of me--of me!" she gasped, her lips all white again.

She got to her feet excitedly.

"You shall not believe it of me." "No, I did not say I believed that," the other remarked almost casually.