“Richard Wentworth,” she cried, starting from her chair, and her face lit, and her voice rang clear and free, “never dare to condemn Emily till you know that this is not so. Never condemn any person on any evidence till you have given that person a hearing. Here is a man who goes about, dropping the hint, the innuendo, the shrug, the hum, the ha, the meaning look, for aught I know the downright wicked lie, all the poisons used by calumny, and while you know him to be on terms of intimacy with Emily, you venture to suppose that he is guiltless of having poisoned her mind against you. Permit me to say that you venture to suppose too much. I would not condemn even him unheard, but what we know, though it is not enough for proof, is quite enough to create a presumption. You have found him fomenting strife between you and Harrington; you know him to have widened the breach between you and Emily. These things show him no friend of yours. And between the evening of your happy parting with Emily and the morning of coldness and alienation, he spent several hours conversing with her. Ominous link, Richard! Find out what it means. Do not assume that she meant to trifle with you. I know better. I know Emily Ames better than you do, and I know that a woman more honorable and loyal in her love never breathed. Go, Richard Wentworth! imitate the magnanimity of Harrington and never let me have it to say that the manliness of your friend was more than that you showed to the woman that you love!” Wentworth rose from his chair, his color flashing and failing, an awful sense of the justice of Muriel’s speech mingling with an awful suspicion of Witherlee, and his love for Emily rushing like a torrent on his heart. “Muriel,” he faltered, “you are right. I have been rash. What shall I do? Oh, if after all I have wronged Emily—if she loves me”— “Richard,” said Muriel, solemnly, “I know she loves you. I have been blind till to-day, but now I see. No sleep came to your poor Emily’s eyes last night, and all day she has been in agony. A little while ago, Harrington was here, and he has soothed her to rest. She lies now asleep in the library. Come with me, and I will leave you to sit by her. Her wakening eyes must rest first on you, and you must make your peace with her. But you must not awaken her. Promise me you will sit patiently by her till she wakes—promise!” Wentworth pressed Muriel’s hand to his lips, and lifting his blanched face, streaming with tears, to hers, faltered— “I promise.” “Oh, my brother,” she fondly said, affectionately encircling his shoulder with her arm, “all will be well with you now. Said I not that the fairy prince dwelt here? Behold, he gives you back to life and love! Come.” Smiling with her happy and noble smile into his face, she led him forth with her arm in his and downstairs to the library door. “Remember your promise,” she whispered. “Now go in.”