"I'm sure I should," assented Mrs. Mellop, with vigour, although she was rather daunted by the refusal of Audrey to accept her advances. "Oh! with all that money I would enjoy myself. And if I married your father, Audrey, I should get him to let you marry Mr. Shawe."
"You have no influence with papa, Mrs. Mellop. However, you are no worse off than you were when you came here."
"Oh! but I am," cried Mrs. Mellop, quite forgetting the jewellery and clothes that she had bought on the credit of her host's name. "Think of what people will say. My name has been coupled with Sir Joseph's, and it is a shame that he should behave so cruelly. But I shan't submit quietly to seeing him carried off by that woman," raged the widow, walking up and down biting her handkerchief. "I shall tell what I know."
"What do you know?"
"I know that Sir Joseph goes out night after night prowling about the streets. Ugh! the horrid old man."
"How dare you!" cried Audrey, flaming up. "Papa goes to help the poor."
Mrs. Mellop laughed contemptuously. "Sir Joseph never helped a single poor person in his life," she said sneeringly. "He goes out for no good purpose, you may be sure. Why, he was out on the night his wife was murdered," hinted Mrs. Mellop, malignantly. "I believe he had something to do with the matter."
Audrey had no reason to be fond of her father, who had always treated her selfishly. But this unfounded accusation was too much for her. She sprang at the little widow and shook her. "How dare you talk in that way?" she said in a cold, hard voice. "You can't connect my father with--"
"Oh, can't I?" interrupted Mrs. Mellop, extricating herself from the girl's grasp with a shriek. "Why, when I was waiting in Walpole Lane on that night I saw your father on the other side of the road."
"You are a fool!" said Miss Branwin, trying to conceal her agitation. "Even if you saw papa, that proves nothing. And you had better hold your tongue, or you will get into trouble."