He was hardly
conscious that he had made any answer, and when, soon afterwards, Tony took
himself off with a friendly: "Well, so long. See you in the morning,
perhaps?" he responded once more like an automaton.
He was aware of only one thing. His whole consciousness concentrated on
it. Ann was innocent--utterly and entirely innocent! There was no longer
any question in his mind. Tony's transparent simplicity and candour
in recounting his adventure at the Dents de Loup and its immediate
consequences was too self-evident to doubt, and although he had refrained
from mentioning the name of the girl who had been his companion--the
"pluckiest girl he knew"--it was equally clear that he had been narrating
the mountain episode in which Ann had been concerned and for which she had
paid so dearly.
Grimly, with a ruthless resolution, Eliot faced the facts. He had
completely and very terribly wronged the woman he loved. His suspicions
had been absolutely unjustified. With his own hand he had pulled down his
happiness--his own and Ann's, too--in ruins about them.
And there could be no going back--no undoing of what had been done. A man
cannot doubt a woman, as he had doubted Ann, and then, when she is proved
transcendently innocent, go back and tell her that he believes in her.
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