Meanwhile Lady Level, in deep agitation, stood at the window which she had had thrown up for air, while she made the confession to Mr. Ravensworth that she had been a witness to the attack on her husband. This she had denied before; and it might never have been wrung from her, but that she overheard the two policemen, already in the house, whispering their suspicions against her. She was shocked, indignant, terrified. She leaned for support on the window-frame, panting for breath in the cold night air. "Arnold, am I to bear this?" He stood with folded arms. He felt for her deeply: were she connected with him by near ties of blood, he could not have been more anxious to protect her; but a strong doubt that she _might_ be guilty was working within him. He supposed she must have received some great provocation from Lord Level. "How cruel they are to entertain such a suspicion! If they--if they---- Oh, Arnold, they never will arrest me!--they never will publicly accuse me!" she uttered, as a new possibility occurred to her. "Blanche, listen," he rejoined, talking to her as he had talked when she was a child. "All that can be done for you, I will do; but I cannot work in this uncertainty. Tell me the truth; be it good or be it ill, I will stand by you; but, if I am to be of service to you, I must know it. Was it you who struck Lord Level?" "No. Have I not just told you so?" "What you told me I do not understand. You say you saw it done----" "Then I did not see it done," she petulantly interrupted; and no more questions would she answer. "Let me take you back to the fire," said Mr. Ravensworth, as he shut down the window. "You are trembling with cold." "Not with cold," was her reply. Stirring the fire into a blaze, he drew the easy-chair near it for her. He then stood by, saying nothing. "Suppose they should openly accuse me?" she began, after a silence. "Would they arrest me?" "Blanche," he retorted, in sharp, ringing, imperative accents, "are you guilty? Tell me, one way or the other, that I may know what to be at." Lady Level rose and confronted him, her blue eyes wearing their most haughty expression. "You have known me for many years, known me well; how then can you repeat that question? _I_ guilty of attacking Lord Level!" "I would rather believe myself--I could as soon believe my own wife guilty of such a thing; but why have you equivocated with me? You have not told me the truth, as to what passed that night." "My husband charged me not to tell anyone." "Five minutes ago you told me yourself that you saw it done; now you say you did not see it. What am I to think?" "In saying I saw it done, I spoke hastily; what I ought to have said was, that I saw who did it. And then, to-day, Lord Level insisted that I had been dreaming," she abstractedly continued. "Arnold, do you believe that we can see visions or dream dreams that afterwards wear the semblance of realities?"