"Yes. So Mr. Langdon said. Now, I’ll tell you what it is, Mrs. Standish," said Dr. Fell sharply. "You are here for the purpose of giving evidence; not orders. You were expressly instructed to come here alone, furthermore. Certain things we have discovered today will not make very pleasant hearing for Miss Depping."
Betty Depping looked up. There had been a sort of weary humor in her eyes; but now she spoke dully, in a pleasant voice which always seemed to ask a question of her future mother-in-law.
"Isn't that," she said, "why I have a right to be here?"
Subdy, it brought a new element into the conversation. You could feel in what she was thinking a vitality, an intensity, even a tragedy about which nobody had bothered to think. Maw's attack was broken, but she went on in a lower voice:
"I wish this nonsense dispelled, that is all. If you cannot be sufficiently courteous—! I refer to hints. From Patricia, and especially (in a mealy-mouthed fashion, which I detest) from Morley. As though to prepare me for something." Maw shut-her jaws hard, and looked from Dr. Fell to the bishop. If I must speak of it, it concerns rumors of poor dear Mr. Depping's past life."
Again Betty Depping looked at her, curiously. "Could it make any difference?" she asked in a low voice.
For a time Hugh could hear the slow tapping of Dr. Fell's pencil on the table. "My dear," he said suddenly, "since you are here… did you ever have any knowledge of your father's past life?"
"N-no. No knowledge. I — suspected something. I don't know what."
"Did you tell this suspicion to anybody?"
"Yes. I told Morley. I thought it was only fair." She hesitated, and a sort of puzzled, protesting fierceness came into her face. "All I wanted to know is, why should it matter? If father had lived — if he were living now — nobody would have known it or asked questions about it. Now that he's dead, if there's anything against him it's bound to come out…"