“I’ve done with it, sir. It was the bitterness and despair that drove me to that. Now I can do without it.”
The door was hastily opened and Miss Hutchins looked anxiously from her father to the visitors and back again.
“Oh, whatever is the matter?” she exclaimed. “I heard a great crash.”
“This gentleman is going to clear me, Meg, my dear,” blurted out the old man irrepressibly. “And I’ve done with the drink for ever.”
“Hutchins! Hutchins!” said Carrados warningly.
“My daughter, sir; you wouldn’t have her not know?” pleaded Hutchins, rather crest-fallen. “It won’t go any further.”
Carrados laughed quietly to himself as he felt Margaret Hutchins’s startled and questioning eyes attempting to read his mind. He shook hands with the engine-driver without further comment, however, and walked out into the commonplace little street under Parkinson’s unobtrusive guidance.
“Very nice of Miss Hutchins to go into half-mourning, Parkinson,” he remarked as they went along. “Thoughtful, and yet not ostentatious.”
“Yes, sir,” agreed Parkinson, who had long ceased to wonder at his master’s perceptions.
“The Romans, Parkinson, had a saying to the effect that gold carries no smell. That is a pity sometimes. What jewellery did Miss Hutchins wear?”