“He got off,” replied Winifred, “but where—I don't know.”
Yes, there it was—impossible to tell anything! Not that he wanted to know. Letters from Annette were coming from Dieppe, where she and her mother were staying.
“You saw that fellow's death, I suppose?”
“Yes,” said Winifred. “I'm sorry for—for his children. He was very amiable.” Soames uttered a rather queer sound. A suspicion of the old deep truth—that men were judged in this world rather by what they were than by what they did—crept and knocked resentfully at the back doors of his mind.
“I know there was a superstition to that effect,” he muttered.
“One must do him justice now he's dead.”
“I should like to have done him justice before,” said Soames; “but I never had the chance. Have you got a 'Baronetage' here?”
“Yes; in that bottom row.”
Soames took out a fat red book, and ran over the leaves.
“Mont-Sir Lawrence, 9th Bt., cr. 1620, e. s. of Geoffrey, 8th Bt., and Lavinia, daur. of Sir Charles Muskham, Bt., of Muskham Hall, Shrops: marr. 1890 Emily, daur. of Conway Charwell, Esq., of Condaford Grange, co. Oxon; 1 son, heir Michael Conway, b. 1895, 2 daurs. Residence: Lippinghall Manor, Folwell, Bucks. Clubs: Snooks'. Coffee House: Aeroplane. See Bidicott.”