“Can’t say. She is in the very same condition as we have seen an old patient of hers and mine, and an old friend of yours. I refer to the late Captain Wyndeworth. This woman was his sick-nurse at the time that I attended him in his last illness, during that dreadful winter preceding the trial of Emolyn Wyndeworth. Ah, I have often thought what a mercy it was that the old gentleman was taken away before that disaster fell upon his house,” murmured the doctor, purposely dragging in the subject. “Ah, so have I! That fatal year was full of disaster! First came the death of my good old friend, the—the loss of my dear boy at sea,” muttered the old commodore in a breaking voice—“then, worse than all, the terrible calamities that befell Emolyn! Ah, that poor girl!” “Did you ever ascertain her fate?” pointedly inquired the doctor. “Oh, no; but of course she is dead; of course she has been dead for many years. Emolyn Wyndeworth never could have survived the shame of a public trial—and such a trial!” “But when it ended in her triumphant acquittal!” “It was not triumphant for her. It was dishonor heaped upon dishonor from beginning to end. Her defense was based upon the theory of paroxysmal insanity. Bah! the verdict of acquittal was rendered upon the same ground. Bah! bah! It killed her, sir!” “Perhaps not; she certainly had the consciousness of innocence to support her.” “A very much overrated support, sir.” “You believe her to have been innocent?” “‘_Believe_,’ Dr. Willet! I know it, sir! I knew that child from her babyhood up. So did you. And I know her to have been as innocent as an infant angel. She said that she had been married. I don’t _believe_ she had ever been married! but I KNOW she was married because she said so! she who never dreamed it possible to lie! She said her young husband was dead, and therefore, of course, I knew he was dead because she said so, she whose soul was truth! She would not give up the name of her husband even to help her own defense. She would not drag down the name of an honorable family into the mire into which her pure name had been hurled by wicked hands! How well I understood her motive! She was a Wyndeworth! She came of a race whose men were all honest, whose women were all pure! She could not be otherwise. Divine lips have told us that ‘men do not gather grapes of thorns or figs of thistles.’ Emolyn Wyndeworth was a true daughter of her noble line! When put to the test, that gentle, sensitive, shrinking girl became heroic! Yes, I repeat it, Emolyn Wyndeworth was innocent, and not only innocent, but heroic! I would to Heaven that _I_ were as guiltless of offense toward her as she was toward all the world!” concluded Commodore Bruce, with a deep sigh. “I am sure that you can have nothing to reproach yourself with in regard to that most unhappy lady,” said Dr. Willet.