There was a severity in his manner which was new to Hilda. He had been the most indulgent of brothers hitherto.
"Why should you speak so unkindly about Mr. Grahame?" she said. "What objection have you to make against him, except that he is not rich?"
"His want of money would make no difference to me, Hilda. If it were for your happiness to marry a man of small means, I could easily reconcile myself to the idea, and would do my best to make things easy for you. I have a much graver objection against Bothwell Grahame than the fact that he is without a profession and without income. There is a horrible suspicion in men's minds about him which makes him a man set apart, like Cain; and my sister must have no dealings with such a man!"
"What do you mean, Edward?" exclaimed Hilda, turning angrily upon her brother, with indignant eyes. "What suspicion? How dare any one suspect him?"
"Unhappily, circumstances are his worst accusers. His own lips, his own manner, have given rise to the conviction which has taken hold of men's minds. When the idea that Bothwell Grahame was the murderer of that helpless girl first arose in my own mind, I struggled against the hideous notion. I told myself that I was a madman to imagine such a possibility. But when I found that the same facts had made exactly the same impression upon other minds—"
"You could think such a thing, Edward!" exclaimed Hilda, pale with horror. "You, who have known Bothwell for years, who knew him when he was a boy, you who have called yourself his friend, seen him day after day! You, a lawyer, a man of the world! You can harbour such a thought as this! I could not have believed it of you."
"Perhaps it is because I am a man of the world, and have seen life on the seamy side, and know too well to what dark gulfs men can go down when the tempter urges them. Perhaps it is because of my experience that I suspect Bothwell Grahame."
"O, it is too horrible!" cried Hilda passionately. "I feel as if I must be mad myself, or in company with a madman. Bothwell Grahame—Bothwell, whom I remember when I was a child, the frank, generous-hearted lad, who went away to India to fight for his country, and who fought so well, and won such praise from his commanding officer—"
"Yes, Hilda," interrupted her brother, "and who, just when he seemed on the high road to fortune, threw up his chances, and abandoned his profession, to become an idler at home. That same Bothwell Grahame who, when he was asked what he did with himself during a long day at Plymouth, could give no account of his time. That same Bothwell, whose manner, from the hour of that catastrophe on the line, became gloomy and
