"And it'll get me into no trouble?" she asked, with that suggestion of Scotch caution of which Paul had so often heard.
"No," replied he, "your name need never be mentioned; but I'm anxious to find out all I can concerning the childhood and girlhood of Jean Lindsay up to the time of her marriage."
"Her marriage!" said the woman scornfully. "Weel, it may be she was married, after all, and it may be I was hard on her, and it may be, too, it was because I thought Donald cared more for her than for my children. Anyhow, she never liked me, and I don't say that I liked her. She was a good lass as lasses go, although never tractable—always stubborn. An unnatural way she had with her, too: she always wanted to be out on the moors alone, and I used to tell Donald it would never come to any good. She might have married well. Willie Fearn, who owns a farm over the moors here, would have had her, and he's worth thousands of pounds now, is Willie. But she would have nothing to say to him. One day I saw a stranger coming up the path with her, one of these handsome Southerners, and they used to meet in secret, and I suppose he courted her. Anyhow, she ran away with him, or said she did, and then came back the next day telling us that she was married."
"Yes?" said Paul eagerly. He knew all this before, but it seemed to him as though he was getting nearer the truth that he longed to learn. "And did she stay with you long?"
"Not long," replied the woman. "You see——" And a look almost of shame came into her eyes. "Well, she stayed as long as she dared."
"And have you heard what has become of her since?" he asked.
"We've heard that she died. We've no proof of it, but we saw in the papers a few weeks afterwards that a girl was found dead, and from the description given of her we concluded that it was Jean."
"But did you not try and find out?" he asked. "Surely your husband would not be so callous towards his daughter?"
"My husband did what I told him," she said. "Besides, the girl had disgraced herself, and we did not want to be dragged into it. Mind, I'm not sure, after all, but what she was properly married, and it may be I did wrong. But there it is—she's dead."
"And did you hear anything more—have you ever heard anything more about this young Southerner?"