"Your fault, you poor child! How do you make that out?"
"If I had never asked Elizabeth to stop with me," she said tremulously, "all this wouldn't have happened. You warned me—don't you remember?—and you were right. I've come to the conclusion, Bobby, that you generally are right and I wrong."
Her tone of submission was as edifying as it was surprising, but Bobby with unwonted quickness cut it short. "Nonsense!" he said almost roughly. "You were right in that case, as you generally are, and I was wrong; and no harm would have come of it if Elizabeth—well, I don't want to hit people when they're down," he said, apologetically "but if she had only been frank with us from the first, all this wouldn't have happened. My dear"—this in response to a reproachful look from his wife—"I don't mean to be hard on her, but I can't hear you blame yourself for what has been poor Elizabeth's own fault, helped out by a most extraordinary train of circumstances."
"She was to blame, certainly," faltered his wife, reluctantly, "but I can understand—I believe I should have done the same in her place."
"No, Eleanor," said Bobby, briefly and with some sternness, "you would not."
"It's true," she admitted, "I don't think I could keep a secret if I tried. But then neither apparently could Elizabeth—to the bitter end. That is one thing I can't understand," she went on, "why you don't any of you attach more importance to the fact that she told Julian herself."
"Because," said Bobby, slowly, "we have only her own word that she did so."
"But her aunts"—began Mrs. Bobby.
"They can't know what passed between them. What people think is that he discovered the marriage and charged her with it. It seems improbable that after deceiving him so long she should suddenly repent. And of course he would shield her as far as possible, so his version goes for nothing."
"All the same, I should like to hear it," said Mrs. Bobby decidedly. "If I were Mr. Fenton, I should summon him at once as witness." (Mr. Fenton was the counsel for the defence.)