No answer.
"Didn't you?"
"I wasn't thinking of her at all."
"What did you think, then?" half defiantly, yet trembling and growing white.
"I thought it strange that you should be talking with her in such a way."
"She was worried about her husband,—his drinking so much,—and came to consult me."
"Why should she—and you—show such consternation at his connection with the name of Mr. Hayne?"
"Nellie, that matter is one you know I cannot bear to talk of." ("Very recently only," thought the younger.) "You once asked me to tell you what Mr. Hayne's crime had been, and I answered that until you could hear the whole story you could not understand the matter at all. We are both worried about Clancy. He is not himself; he is wild and imaginative when he's drinking. He has some strange fancies since the fire, and he thinks he ought to do something to help the officer because he helped him, and his head is full of Police Gazette stories, utterly without foundation, and he thinks he can tell who the real culprits were,—or something of that kind. It is utter nonsense. I have investigated the whole thing,—heard the whole story. It is the trashiest, most impossible thing you ever dreamed of, and would only make fearful trouble if Mr. Hayne got hold of it."
"Why?"
"Why? Because he is naturally vengeful and embittered, and he would seize on any pretext to make it unpleasant for the officers who brought about his trial."