“Danger!” The Earl fairly started.
“Danger,” the consultant repeated firmly. “The man whose death has brought us down here was an unscrupulous scoundrel. He laid traps for women. Under the pretence of soothing their nerves he induced them to tell him their secrets, and to write him letters containing their inmost thoughts. There is every likelihood that he met his death at the hands of some woman whom he had entrapped in that way, and whom he was attempting to blackmail.”
“But what has that to do with my daughter?” his lordship burst out. “You don’t suppose that she knew he was going to be murdered?”
“I haven’t suggested it. The evidence is to the contrary, I am glad to see. But your daughter has been beguiled into writing to this man, and in her innocence she has very likely written a good many things that you would not care to see published. Those letters are still in existence, probably, and we don’t know in whose hands. Until they are found and destroyed Lady Violet will be at the mercy of the holder.”
“Wretched girl!” Even now the selfish father could find nothing better to do than to blame his child.
“Who made her wretched?” Tarleton’s face wore the stern look of a judge passing sentence. “Who drove her to confide in a stranger and a charlatan? Who handed her over to a hired companion whom she seems to have disliked and distrusted? Who taught her to look for sympathy anywhere except from her own parent and in her own home?”
Never have I witnessed a rebuke better administered or with better effect. Lord Ledbury was utterly subdued. If the condemnation had come from a young man like myself, or from a professed preacher, he might have tried to defend himself. But from a man of his own age, and a man in authority, the representative of law and public opinion, it was an unanswerable charge.
For the best part of a minute he sat silent. His face worked. Memories of the past must have come back to him; perhaps he asked himself what account he could give to Violet’s mother of her only child. His voice was altered and broken when he spoke again.
“You have been very plain with me, Sir Frank. I recognize that you have spoken as a friend—as my daughter’s friend at least, if not mine. It may be that my treatment of her has been mistaken, although I meant it for the best; at all events, it has turned out unfortunately. But her good name is the first consideration now. These letters—what do you advise me to do?”
The physician considered for a time before he spoke.