"This is absurd!" cried the aggravated Mr. Robinson. "Do you mean to tell me——"
Garrison cut in upon him with genuine warmth. He was fencing blindly in Dorothy's behalf, and instinct was guiding him with remarkable precision.
"I should think you might understand," he said, "that once in a while a young woman, with a natural desire to be esteemed for herself alone, might purposely avoid all mention both of her relatives and prospects."
"We've all heard about these marriages for love," sneered Dorothy's uncle. "Where did you suppose she got this house?"
Garrison grew bolder as he felt a certain confidence that so far he had made no particular blunders. His knowledge of the value of half a truth, or even the truth entire, was intuitive.
"I have never been in this house before tonight," he said. "Our 'honeymoon,' as you called it earlier, has, as you know, been brief, and none of it was spent beneath this roof."
"Then how did you know where to come?" demanded Mr. Robinson.
"Dorothy supplied me the address," answered Garrison. "It is not uncommon, I believe, for husband and wife to correspond."
"Well, here we are, and here we'll stay," said Mr. Robinson, "till the will and all the business is settled. Perhaps you'll say you didn't even know there was a will."
Garrison was beginning to see light, dimly. What it was that lay behind Dorothy's intentions and her scheme he could not know; he was only aware that to-night, stealing a glance at her sweet but worried face, and realizing faintly that she was greatly beset with troubles, his whole heart entered the conflict, willingly, to help her through to the end.