"No, I think they were just going. And Basil went too."
"And then?"
"Then, afterwards, he died. And she came back here, brazenly, with a little child and a married name. Once she spoke to me on the street. She said she would like to talk to me about him, but I told her I couldn't. I had Richard with me in the coach and it was right out in the open street. I was afraid to go out for weeks."
"Did she ever make any other effort to speak to you?"
"No; she seemed afraid."
"But if what you think is true, the girl should be older than she is! It can't be, mother!"
"I believe that she is older than she says. How else should she have got ahead of our Richard in school? That is the only way to account for it."
Dr. Lister remembered the astonishing maturity of Eleanor's mind.
"And I know what my eyes tell me!" cried Mrs. Lister. "Her eyes are Basil's eyes. It was her eyes Mr. Utterly was thinking of when he saw Basil's picture. I knew it. Her walk is his. She is Basil over again. For all these years I have had to look at her in church and on the street. I had begun to feel a little safe because I thought that now she might go away. Then this man came with his hateful inquiries."
"Poor Mary Alcestis!"