While he spent the evening, lounging in well-earned leisure beside the stove, Mrs. Colston was talking seriously to her sister in a room of the Leslie homestead. Owing to the number of its inmates, she had found it difficult to get a word with the girl alone, and now that an opportunity had come, she felt that she must make the most of it.
“Muriel,” she said, “do you think it’s judicious to speak so strongly in Prescott’s favor as you have done of late? You were rude to Gertrude last night.”
The girl colored. She had, as a matter of fact, lost her temper, which was generally quick.
“I hate injustice!” she broke out. “Gertrude and her father make such an unfair use of everything they can find against him, and I think Gertrude’s the worse of the two.” She looked hard at her sister. “She shows a rancor against the man which even the disappearance of her brother doesn’t account for.”
The same idea had occurred to Mrs. Colston, but it was a side issue and she was not to be drawn away from the point.
“You stick to the word disappearance,” she said.
“Yes,” Muriel answered steadily. “Cyril Jernyngham isn’t dead!”
“You have only Prescott’s word for that.”
Muriel made no answer for a few moments; then she looked up with a resolute expression.
“I’m satisfied with it!”