The Price He Paid — page 286: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

GABRIELLE’S RETURN.—RETROSPECTIVE 277 initely shut me out from the ranks of the ‘wild reformers.’ “ At first I stood bewildered by the terrible accu- sation, then with indignant vehemence I made my protest. Openly avowing my imprudence, the only crime of which I had been guilty, I gave a circum- stantial account of my interview with the minister— in vain, my words were received as so many mere evasive shifts. I was judged, and against their’ sentence there was no appeal. One man alone would perhaps have believed me—Rudolph Brun- now. He was the principal sufferer, the one on whom the blow had fallen most heavily; and yet, had I been able to confront him, to look him in the face, and say: ‘It is a lie, Rudolph. I am no traitor!’ he would have given me his hand, and together we should have fought down the calumny. But he was in prison—beyond my reach. I gave the others my word of honor. They answered that I had no honor to lose, and even refused me all satisfaction for the gross insult. These men, baited, persecuted, irritated to madness, were not capable of forming an unbiased judgment, and I fear that their suspicions were purposely directed against me. This, indeed, | have never learned for a fact; but the pardou, which was soon afterward granted me, set the seal on my supposed ignominy and my dis- eorace. “A month later | was with the minister again. I had tried every means in my power to clear myself from the shameful suspicion, and had failed. Iwas still shunned, proscribed by the members of my own party, thrust out from their midst—and now | resolved in my turn to cast them from me. Up to this time I had been blameless. I now knew ex- actly what would be demanded of me, were I to accept my chief’s proposal; but my whole soul rose in arms against those who had condemned me with- out a hearing. The insults I had endured, the in- justice of my former friends, drove me straight into the enemy’s camp. I knew thatthe price of my new position would be the renunciation of my Eomichboo gs) (e(0)