"Egad, if you haven't caught his style! You believe all that, do you?"
"Yes."
"We shall go far to-night, I think," Harry shrugged. "And shall I tell you why you believe it, ma'am? It's because you are looking about to find matter for blackening me."
Alison hesitated a moment. "You cannot deny it. It is proved. Your father would not stay to face them."
"Face a pistol and a furious Scot? Well, I never said he was a hero."
"Do you pretend it was only a fight he feared? Do you dare tell me it was an honest, honourable plan? Nay, come, let me see if there's anything you think shameful."
Harry shrugged. "I know my father not much better than you do, ma'am. I never thought him a Bayard. Some plot there was, I think, and these political plots are all dirty enough. But, Lord, who is clean of them? And I'm not ready to write my father off a murderer because Mr. Waverton went blundering into a business which, on his own confession, he does not understand."
"He went in your place. You should have gone with your father."
"Should have gone? D'ye wish I had, ma'am?"
"Perhaps."