"I've always had everything I wanted," replied Miss Wickham.
"And you were at Ryedene twelve years?"
"Except for the holidays—yes."
"You must be a very learned young lady," suggested Mr. Carless.
Miss Wickham looked round the circle of attentive faces.
"I can play tennis and hockey very well," she said, smiling a little.
"And I wasn't bad at cricket the last season or two—we played cricket
there. But I'm not up to much at anything else, except that I can talk
French decently."
"Physical culture, eh?" observed Mr. Carless, smiling. "Very well! Now, then, in the end Mr. Ashton came home to England, and of course came to see you, and in due course you left school, and came to his house in Markendale Square, where he got a Mrs. Killenhall to look after you. All that correct? Yes? Well, then, I think, from what Mr. Pawle tells me, Mr. Ashton handed over a lot of money to you, and told you it had been left to you, or left in his charge for you, by your father? That is correct too? Very well. Now, did Mr. Ashton never tell you anything much about your father?"
"No, he never did. Beyond telling me that my father was an Englishman who had gone out to Australia and settled there, he never told me anything. But," here Miss Wickham paused and hesitated for a while, "I have an idea," she continued in the end, "that he meant to tell me something—what, I, of course, don't know. He once or twice—hinted that he would tell me something, some day."
"You didn't press him?" suggested Mr. Carless.
"I don't think I am naturally inquisitive," replied Miss Wickham. "I certainly did not press him. I knew he'd tell me, whatever it was, in his own way."