"Quite so, but has he been a good guardian?"
"Yes. No one could have been a better one, so far as I know."
"Precisely," said Anthony, quickly, "so far as you know. But the fact is, Clarice, I don't like Mr. Horran, and I never liked him, and--and--" he hesitated.
"Go on--go on. Don't keep me in suspense."
"Well, then, three months ago I was in town, and went to a ball at the Shah's Rooms. It was not--to be plain--a very reputable dance, or at all events it was extremely Bohemian. I went there before I was engaged to you, Clarice; now, I should not go. Well, then, at that dance, I saw Mr. Horran--"
"Oh, that's quite impossible. He has not been out of his room for years and years."
"I recognised him at a glance," said Ackworth, steadily, "his military carriage, his spare figure, his long, iron-grey moustache. And he was with a tall man, who had a criss-cross scar on his left cheek."
"The man in grey who searched Dr. Jerce on the terrace?"
"The same--if Dr. Jerce's description is to be relied upon. I never thought of the thing until you left the room. Then, remembering our late conversation, the memory of the incident came back. Now, Clarice, if this man--as Jerce declares--is mixed up in the Purple Fern business, he certainly was with Mr. Horran, and that, don't you see, brings your guardian into the affair."
Clarice turned quite pale. "It is very mysterious," she said to herself, "and yet it seems perfectly absurd. Uncle Henry is ill; he has always been ill, off and on, for the last ten years. I have lived in this house with him all the time. How could he possibly go to town even once without my knowledge?"