“You’re in love with him, or fancy you are, of course?” pursued he harshly.
Chris admitted that too.
“And you think I’ve ill-treated him, no doubt?”
The young girl’s face changed suddenly. She looked so sad, so wistful, that he was touched.
“I—I hope not; oh, I hope not!”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that you have been so kind to my mother and me, that—that——”
“Well, that what?” said he, not looking at her, and trying to speak as gruffly as ever.
“That I shouldn’t like to think——”
She paused again, and there was silence on both sides for a minute or two. Chris was looking with wide eyes at the back of his head, wondering with all her might whether it were possible for a man, a real man, one, too, by no means without the milk of human kindness as far as most people were concerned, to be guilty of the crimes which seemed to have been brought home to him.