"Ruth told me that you were interesting yourself in it," was the reply, "and I know all that she could tell me. I was not very pleased to find that she had been getting mixed up in the affair."
"It was her own wish," Heron said. "I did not like it myself, and I should have been the last person in the world to tell her anything about it. But, after all, it was but the curiosity of a young girl. No one can blame her."
"No one can blame any woman for being curious," Mr. Cass said, drily. "All the same, feminine curiosity can do a lot of mischief when it is not properly directed--as in this instance. Will you please to tell me, Heron, exactly how Ruth found it out?"
Not knowing that Mr. Cass wished to compare his story with Ruth's, Geoffrey willingly consented, and informed him of Ruth's visit to Mrs. Jent, and how the outcome of it all, so far as he was concerned, had been his discovery of the fact that Ruth was willing to marry him. "And that is, after all, what I care most about," he said, with a happy look in his eyes.
"I am very glad of it," Mr. Cass said, soberly. "I always wanted her to marry you; I think you will be able to control her. I was afraid at one time that she would have run away with Webster."
"I don't think that he would have run away with her," replied Geoffrey. "He decided to give her up when he learnt the secret of his parentage. Now he has got over his love, and is quite willing that she should marry me. Poor Neil! He has had a bad time."
"That could not have been prevented. I did my best to spare him the knowledge of his mother's fate. She asked me to make her the promise, and I did so.
"Do you think she is guilty?
"I really can't say," replied Mr. Cass with some hesitation. "When she was arrested I implored her to defend herself if she could. But she obstinately refused to open her mouth. She certainly never told me that Neil had killed his father."
"Do you believe he did?"