Indeed how could I! The daughter of a poet and the daughter of a convict are not comparable in the consequences of their conduct if their necessity may wear at times a similar aspect. Amongst these consequences I could perceive undesirable cousins for these dear healthy girls, and such like, possible causes of embarrassment in the future.
“No! You can’t be serious,” Mrs. Fyne’s smouldering resentment broke out again. “You haven’t thought—”
“Oh yes, Mrs. Fyne! I have thought. I am still thinking. I am even trying to think like you.”
“Mr. Marlow,” she said earnestly. “Believe me that I really am thinking of my brother in all this . . . ” I assured her that I quite believed she was. For there is no law of nature making it impossible to think of more than one person at a time. Then I said:
“She has told him all about herself of course.”
“All about her life,” assented Mrs. Fyne with an air, however, of making some mental reservation which I did not pause to investigate. “Her life!” I repeated. “That girl must have had a mighty bad time of it.”
“Horrible,” Mrs. Fyne admitted with a ready frankness very creditable under the circumstances, and a warmth of tone which made me look at her with a friendly eye. “Horrible! No! You can’t imagine the sort of vulgar people she became dependent on . . . You know her father never attempted to see her while he was still at large. After his arrest he instructed that relative of his—the odious person who took her away from Brighton—not to let his daughter come to the court during the trial. He refused to hold any communication with her whatever.”
I remembered what Mrs. Fyne had told me before of the view she had years ago of de Barral clinging to the child at the side of his wife’s grave and later on of these two walking hand in hand the observed of all eyes by the sea. Pictures from Dickens—pregnant with pathos.
CHAPTER SIX—FLORA
“A very singular prohibition,” remarked Mrs. Fyne after a short silence. “He seemed to love the child.”