“Yes,” said Mark Ruthine, “I know.”
“The night he was born,” Mrs. Agar went on, “I first saw and spoke to that man after he had come back from India—after I had learnt what he had done.”
Ruthine turned round towards Jem and Dora.
“You hear that,” he said to them. “This is not the story of a mother trumped up in court to save her son. It is the truth. There are some things which we do not understand even yet. Don't forget what you have heard. It will come in usefully.”
He turned to Mrs. Agar again.
“Did he know the story?” he asked.
“He never heard it until you told it just now.”
“Can you swear to that, Mrs. Agar?”
“Yes.”
“Then,” said Ruthine, “he does not know now that you are the woman whom Seymour Michael wronged. He need never know it. The paroxysm had come on before you spoke—that was why I shouted. He was mad with hate, before you opened your lips.”