"Well, don't scold, I won't say a word against her, but there is one thing, Mary, that I must speak about, for it poisons all the rest. I cannot be content with Mrs. Farnham till that is settled. Mary, I am sure Mr. Farnham killed my father—hush, hush, I know how it was. He did not strike him dead, but it was his cruelty in driving him from the police that did it in the end."
"Yes," said Mary, with quiet sadness, "I think it was Mr. Farnham that did it."
"Is it right then, tell me, Mary, isn't it mean and cruel for me, his own little girl, to live with these people and let them support me—the father's murderers, as one might say supporting his child?"
Mary remained silent some time, not that this idea had never struck her before, but the flood of remembrance it brought back affected her painfully.
"I have thought of that a great many times, Isabel," she said, "for I felt a good deal as you do at first, but it isn't a right feeling, and so I did the best I could to conquer it without saying a word."
"Why is it a wrong feeling?" said Isabel quickly, "wouldn't it seem horrid to any one? Every mouthful I eat belongs to the people who murdered my own father."
"But Mr. Farnham was the only one to blame, and he was very, very sorry before he died."
"How do you know that?"
A faint color came into Mary's face as she answered,
"Joseph Esmond told me, Mr. Farnham came to his father's only three nights before he died, and he told Joseph with his own lips that he did not mean to kill your father, and Joseph said he looked more sorrowful than his words. It was the last time they ever saw each other. Poor Joseph cried when he told me about it."