"He said that!" she cried. "He did that! Oh!" She turned away,
and through the slender, clustering trunks of the bordering
orange-trees she looked out across the glittering waters of the
great harbour to the distant hills. Thus for a little while, my
lord standing stiffly, fearfully, waiting for fuller revelation of
her mind. At last it came, slowly, deliberately, in a voice that
at moments was half suffocated. "Last night when my uncle displayed
his rancour and his evil rage, it began to be borne in upon me that
such vindictiveness can belong only to those who have wronged. It is
the frenzy into which men whip themselves to justify an evil passion.
I must have known then, if I had not already learnt it, that I had
been too credulous of all the unspeakable things attributed to Peter
Blood. Yesterday I had his own explanation of that tale of Levasseur
that you heard in St. Nicholas. And now this... this but gives me
confirmation of his truth and worth. To a scoundrel such as I was
too readily brought to believe him, the act of which you have just
told me would have been impossible.
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