‘Of course not the real thing,’ she said, and paused.
The temptation to be very clever came to her. She would tell him the real thing, and he would never think it could be the real one.
‘Well, suppose,’ she said slowly, and stopped.
‘Suppose?’
‘You heard about that boy who ran away, and they were looking for him yesterday?’
‘He wasn’t found, was he?’ the clergyman asked, carefully picking dead leaves from a salmon-coloured fuchsia.
‘No,’ said Caroline. ‘Well, suppose the boy had come to you, what would you have done? You wouldn’t have given him up, would you?’
‘I don’t know any of the facts of the case,’ he answered slowly.
‘But suppose it was a runaway slave.’
‘Certainly not.’