“Dr. Crackenthorpe? Why was——”
“He said that juries took such an idiotic view of a father’s responsibilities; that dad might be censured for letting the boy run wild; that in any case the family’s habits of life would be raked over and cause a scandal that might make things very uncomfortable; that it was a perfectly plain case of drowning, and that he was quite willing to give a certificate that death was due to a rupture of some blood vessel in the brain following exhaustion from exposure—or something of that sort.”
“And he did?”
“Yes, at last, after a deal of talk, and he was buried quietly and there was an end of it.”
Not quite an end, Zyp—not quite an end!
She was very gentle and patient with me all the morning, and my poor soul brimmed over with gratitude. My pulses began even to flicker a little with hope that things might be as they were before the catastrophe. After all she was a very independent changeling and, if there existed in her heart any bias in my favor, Jason might find himself quite baffled in his efforts to control her inclinations.
Presently I turned to the same overclouding subject.
“What happened the day I was taken bad, Zyp?”
“Jason found you on the stairs, talking rubbish. They carried you to bed and you hardly left off talking rubbish for weeks. Don’t you remember anything of it?”
“Nothing, after—after I saw him lying there so dreadful.”