“I don’t know what you mean,” Ilam said.
“You must ask mamma,” replied Carpentaria, departing.
He saw now with the utmost clearness that the aged Mrs. Ilam had been indulging him with some impromptu lying, invented, and clumsily invented, to put him off the scent, were it only for a few hours.
“She may be clumsy in her lying,” he thought as he descended the stairs in Juliette’s wake, “but she can act, the old woman can!”
He remembered that her acting had been perfect, and if Juliette had not happened to disclose the fact of her presence, the lying of Mrs. Ilam, clumsy as it was, might have succeeded. It is so easy to poison a dog, and to arrange the remains of poisoned milk.
He was capable of congratulating her on her acting, but she had utterly vanished from the ground-floor.
When he had deposited Juliette safely in his study, she began to cry softly. It was impossible for him to maintain his anger against her.
“Juliette,” he said, “why do you have secrets from me?”
“Oh, Carlos, he wished it to be kept secret. He said he had reasons; and I love him. No one has ever loved me before, and I’m thirty.”
“What about my affection?” asked Carpentaria.