"Odds my life! Are you in love with the man?
Have you been fooling us ?" "No," she answered.

"But I'll be no party to his murder." "Murder, quotha! Who talks of murder ?" Her shrewd eyes searched his face.

"How came you by your knowledge that this courier rode to Mr.
Wilding ?" she asked him suddenly, and the swift change that overspread his countenance showed her that she had touched him in a tender spot, assured her of the thing she had suddenly come to suspect--a suspicion which at the same time started from and explained much that had been mysterious in Richard's ways of late.

"You had knowledge of this conspiracy," she pursued, answering her own question before he had time to speak, "because you were one of the conspirators." "At least I am so no longer," he blurted out.

"I thank Heaven for that, Richard; for your life is very dear to me.