"Then who did?"
"My dear young lady, if I could tell you that I should be the richer by fifty thousand pounds; but on that point I am as ignorant as you are. I held your father in my arms when he died; I saw him buried. It was not Carew who killed Dargill, alias Edermont, and there is nothing in the story told to me by your father likely to throw light on the mystery."
"You--you do not think my mother killed him?" faltered Dora.
Pallant scoffed at the idea.
"Could those little hands wield a heavy club? Could those weak muscles deliver so terrible a blow? No, Miss Carew; your mother is too weak, too--if I dare say so--cowardly, to do such a thing. She is as innocent of this death as your father. Dargill's fate is not due to the vendetta of the past."
"It must be due to something of the sort, Mr. Pallant. No one had any interest in killing so harmless a man."
"No one in this neighbourhood, you mean."
"Yes; I have lived here all my life, and I know everything about my guardian. He had few friends, and lived quietly among his books and flowers. Beyond his constant fear lest my father should find him out, I never saw him distressed in any way. And in some things Mr. Edermont was as transparent as a child. If he had been threatened by any person about here, I should have known of it."
"Then you think his death must be due to what took place twenty years ago?"
"Don't you think so yourself, Mr. Pallant?"