“But,” said Mr. Grant, who had listened with attention to Marion’s advocacy, with a curious smile occasionally glimmering across his face, “but, my dear, that is a doubtful cause that can be maintained only on the discredit of the other side. How could this man have embezzled for the benefit of Sir Francis if, as I am given to understand, he absconded with the proceeds of his robbery?”
“No one knows whether he had the money with him,” answered Marion, driven to bay. “All that is known is, that he disappeared, and that Sir Francis said the bank was robbed. You say that Sir Francis replaced the loss from his private purse; but perhaps his purse had first been filled for him by the very man he denounced as a defaulter!”
At this audacious hypothesis Mr. Grant laughed, though with so kindly an expression that Marion could not feel she was being ridiculed. “You go near to make me wish, my dear,” he said, “that I might be unjustly accused, if I might hope to have you for my defender.”
“How fortunate, then, was this questionable cousin of mine, to have made good his embezzlement and his escape, and withal to have found such a defender!” said Lancaster. “You see, Miss Lockhart, my cousinhood with him allows me the liberty of reviling him quietly if I choose. Whatever your cousin has done, you are liable to do yourself; so I am only whipping myself across my cousin’s back.”
“If you need whipping at all, why don’t you whip yourself directly?” Marion demanded, quick to resent whatever seemed to her patronizing or artificial in another’s tone.
“Oh, Marion!” exclaimed Mrs. Lockhart, under her breath.
“I only meant,” said Lancaster smiling, “that whenever I hear of a man committing a crime, I have a fellow-feeling for him: I believe there is the making of a capital criminal in me, if I am only given fair opportunities.”
It was not the first time Lancaster had spoken in this way, and Marion had not made up her mind how to understand him. She looked away and made no reply.
After a moment Mr. Grant said, “You spoke of Charles Grantley having left a family behind him; is one to infer from that there were children?”
“There was a daughter, I think,” said Mrs. Lockhart, relieved at the change of subject; “didn’t you know her, Marion?”