"I am taking the car, father."
Even Steppe did not ask her where she was going.
III
Christina had known in the middle of the night when the police came to search Sault's room. A detective of high rank had been communicative; she heard the story with a serenity which filled the quaking Evie with wonder. If her face grew of a sudden peaked, a new glory glowed in her eyes.
Mrs. Colebrook wept noisily and continued to weep throughout the night. Christina meditated upon an old suspicion of hers, that her mother regarded Ambrose Sault as being near enough the age of a lonely widow woman, to make possible a second matrimonial venture. This view Evie held definitely.
"Oh, Chris—my dear, I am so sorry," whimpered the younger girl, when the police had taken their departure. "And I've said such horrid things about him. Chris, poor darling, aren't you feeling awful—I am."
"Am I feeling sorry for Ambrose? No." Christina searched her heart before she went on. "I'm not sorry. Ambrose was so inevitably big. Something tremendous must come to him: it couldn't be otherwise."
"I was afraid something might happen." Evie shook her head wisely. "This Greek man was very insulting. Ronnie told me that. And if poor Ambrose lost his temper—"
"Ambrose did not lose his temper," Christina interrupted brusquely. "If Ambrose killed him, he did it because he intended doing it."