“I do not care what is said against Derrick Ames. I am sure that he is innocent of any connection with my father’s death. What he was to others I cannot say, but in the eyes of Helen and myself he was a noble-hearted young man, incapable of an unworthy thought or act.”
“She pleads for him as if for a lover,” thinks Ashley, regarding with admiration the girl before him. The flash in the blue eyes and the flush in the cheeks tell of warm sympathies and a loyal heart.
“Your sister never intimated to you the likelihood of an elopement?” Ashley inquires.
“Never. Had she a thought of such a thing I should have known it. We kept nothing from each other.”
“You knew that they met clandestinely?”
“I did.”
Ashley shifts the line of questioning to return to it at a more favorable opportunity. It is apparent that it is becoming painful to the girl.
“What were the relations between your father and Mr. Felton—the elder Felton?”
“Almost wholly of a business nature.”
“They were friends?”