The last words were spoken so low that he hardly caught them.
“Suppose I know the worst about your father?” he asked quietly, and she stood back, looking at him from under knit brows.
“Do you mean that? What is it, Dick?”
He shook his head.
“I may know or I may not. It is only a wild guess. And you’re not to tell him that I know, or that I’m in any way suspicious. Will you please do that for me?”
“And knowing this, would it make any difference to you?”
“None.”
She had plucked a flower, and was pulling it petal from petal in her abstraction.
“Is it very dreadful?” she asked. “Has he committed a crime? No, no, don’t tell me.”
Once more he was near her, his arm about her trembling shoulders, his hand beneath her chin.