"I don't know," said Esther, in a perfect clarity.
His new formed hope crumbled. He could hear inexorably, like a counter cry, Lydia's voice, saying, "She stole it." Had Esther stolen it? But Esther did not know Lydia had said it, or that it had ever been said to him at all, and she was daring more than she would have dared if she had known of that antagonist.
"It is a plot between them," she said boldly.
"Between whom?"
"Aunt Patricia and him."
"What is the plot?"
"I don't know."
"If you think there was a plot, you must have made up your mind what the plot was and what they were to gain by it. What do you believe the plot to have been?"
This was all very stupid, Esther felt, when he might be assuring her of his unchanged and practical devotion.
"Oh, I don't know," she said irritably. "How should I know?"