"What have you been doing, then?"
"I have been sitting alone all the evening, part of the time in my bedroom, part of it here."
"What have you been doing?"
"Thinking. Father, I was at the trial to-day."
"I am very sorry," he replied. "Such places are not for you."
"Why? There was no one so interested as I."
"Of course you are naturally interested in the murder of Ned Wilson," he replied. "All the same, it is unhealthy and morbid, this desire to be present at murder trials. But good-night, Mary. I want to be alone. I have a great deal to do."
"Not yet, father," she said. "I want to talk with you about this trial. Of course you do not believe him guilty?"
"Why not?"
Somehow the presence of his daughter had made him cool and collected again, and he had a kind of instinctive feeling that she must be kept in the dark concerning what had happened. He was so far able to control himself, too, that he spoke to her quite naturally.