“Why, yes; like quite old friends,” she agreed. “It is a pity that I had no very trusty friend, since my mother died when I was quite little. Even my father has been—it is queer to think of it now—well, almost a stranger to me really.”
She looked at Carrados’s serene and kindly face and smiled.
“It is a great relief to be able to talk like this, without the necessity for lying,” she remarked. “Did you know that I was engaged?”
“No; you had not told me that.”
“Oh no, but you might have heard of it. He is a clergyman whom I met last summer. But, of course, that is all over now.”
“You have broken it off?”
“Circumstances have broken it off. The daughter of a man who had the misfortune to be murdered might just possibly be tolerated as a vicar’s wife, but the daughter of a murderer and suicide—it is unthinkable! You see, the requirements for the office are largely social, Mr Carrados.”
“Possibly your vicar may have other views.”
“Oh, he isn’t a vicar yet, but he is rather well-connected, so it is quite assured. And he would be dreadfully torn if the choice lay with him. As it is, he will perhaps rather soon get over my absence. But, you see, if we married he could never get over my presence; it would always stand in the way of his preferment. I worked very hard to make it possible, but it could not be.”
“You were even prepared to send an innocent man to the gallows?”