CHAPTER XIII
The girl who entered the room a moment later was tall and graceful, with a yearning expression in her soft dark eyes, as though in search of a happiness which had been denied her by Fate. Her appearance was one of unusual refinement. She had not a trace of the coarsened blowzy look so common in English country girls; there was nothing of rustic lumpishness in her slim figure, and there was more than mere prettiness in her exquisite small features, her thick dark hair, her clear white skin with a tracery of blue veins in the temples. Her high-bridged nose and firm chin suggested some force of character, but that suggestion was counteracted by her wistful tender mouth, with drooping underlip. The face, on the whole, was a paradoxical one, containing elements of strength and weakness, and the eyes were the index to a strange passionate nature.
She advanced into the room quietly, with a swift glance, immediately veiled by drooped lids, at the faces of the police officials who were awaiting her. When she reached the far end of the table at which they were seated she stopped and stood with her hands clasped loosely in front of her, as though waiting to be questioned.
"Please sit down, Miss Rath," said Captain Stanhill politely. "We wish to ask you a few questions."
The girl seated herself in a chair some distance away from her mother, and this time she surveyed the men before her with an air of indifference which was obviously simulated.
But again she quickly dropped her eyes, for Merrington was staring at her with a look of amazement, as though confronted with a familiar presence whose identity he could not recall. He glanced from Hazel to her mother, and his eyes fastened themselves fiercely on the housekeeper with the satisfaction of a man who had solved an elusive puzzle.
"So we have met before, Mrs. Rath," he said. "You are—"
"No, no! Please keep silent in front of my daughter," broke in the housekeeper hurriedly.
"I was not mistaken. I remembered this woman's face this morning, but I could not then recall where I had seen her before," pursued Merrington, turning to Captain Stanhill and speaking with a sort of reflective cruelty. "Her daughter's face supplies the clue. She is the image of her mother as I remember her when she stood her trial at Old Bailey fifteen years ago. She was tried for—"