The judge became urbane, bland, deprecatory.
"I beg pardon, my dear. Not luck—skill."
Mrs. Walbrough's assumption of scorn left her. Her laugh joined Clancy's. Clancy didn't realize just then how deftly the judge had steered her away from possible tears, and how superbly Mrs. Walbrough had played up to her husband's acting.
She put one hand in the big palm of the judge and let her other arm encircle Mrs. Walbrough's waist.
"If I should say, 'Thank you,'" she said, "it would sound so pitifully little——"
"So you'll just say nothing, young woman," thundered the judge. "You'll eat some dinner, pack a bag, and you and Maria'll catch the eight-twenty to Hinsdale. You won't be buried there. Lots of people winter there. Maria and I used to spend lots of time there before she grew too old to enjoy tobogganing. But I'm not too old. I'll be up to-morrow or the next day, to bring you home. For the real murderer will be found. He must be!"
Not merely then, but half a dozen times through the meal that followed, Clancy resisted the almost overpowering temptation to tell what she had overheard being said in the Carey dining-room. It wasn't fair to the Walbroughs to withhold information. On the other hand, she must be more than fair to Sophie. Before she spoke, she must know more.
But how, immured in some country home, was she to learn more? Yet she could not refuse flight without an explanation. And the only explanation would involve Don Carey, the husband of the woman who had been first in New York to befriend her.
She couldn't tell—yet. She must have time to think, to plan. And so she kept silence. Had she been able to read the future, perhaps she would have broken the seal of silence; perhaps not. One is inclined to believe that she would have been sensible enough to realize that even knowledge of the future cannot change it.