Riderhood had not done the deed, but had resolved in his malice to turn against her father, the appearances that were ready to his hand to distort.

Equally and swiftly upon either putting of the case, followed the frightful possibility that her father, being innocent, yet might come to be believed guilty.

She had heard of people suffering Death for bloodshed of which they were afterwards proved pure, and those ill-fated persons were not, first, in that dangerous wrong in which her father stood.

Then at the best, the beginning of his being set apart, whispered against, and avoided, was a certain fact.

It dated from that very night.