“Well, after all, she might do worse.”
“That’s not the question,” replied his mother, a little indignant. “I think she might do very much better.”
“I don’t know. He’s a very decent fellow. Personally—”
“Oh, every one likes him!” she interrupted impatiently; “and every one seems to have forgotten that we don’t know anything at all about him. Mrs. Carew is very nice, of course; but after all, they’ve only been here a few months. They don’t seem at all well off, and yet he doesn’t appear to be worried about not having the least sign of a practice. I can’t help thinking—”
She paused significantly.
“What can’t you help thinking?” inquired her son, with a smile. “That poor Hunter has some sinister secret in his past?”
“No,” said she. “No, not that. I don’t like to say it, but I’ve sometimes thought he might be nothing but an adventurer, who came here to find a wife with money.”
“Mother!” exclaimed Alan, quite shocked. “That’s not like you!”
But his trained and disciplined brain refused to remain shocked. He was obliged to admit that the qualities for which he admired Hunter—courage and daring and steady nerves—did not always signify moral excellence. An adventurer might very well possess them; and about Hunter’s former life, about his home life, he knew absolutely nothing.
“Very well!” he said to himself. “In justice to Nesta, and in justice to Hunter as well, it’s my business to find out.”