"My words may have signified too much.

But she has been imprudent." "It is not true, sir!" The voice of Jessie startled them again.

She stood almost on the spot from which they had turned a moment before.
"It is not true, sir!" she repeated her words.

"Not true, in any degree! All is but the ghost of a jealous fancy! And now, sir, beware how you attempt to connect my name with evil reports or surmises! I may be stung into demanding of you the proof, and in another place than this! Never, even in thought, have I dishonored you.

That is a lower deep into which my nature can never fall; and you should have known me well enough to have had faith.