“If I am to understand your story, either you must tell it, or I must guess it.”
“I am telling it, as fast as I can use my tongue,” returned Sir Francis, who was beginning to be demoralized by the lawyer’s imperturbable high-handedness. “To hear you, one would suppose that I was talking in riddles.”
“It may be my obtuseness; but I cannot see why the fact that a good-looking woman, who is your niece and adopted daughter, chooses to live in London, should in itself cause you annoyance.”
“If you will do me the favor to listen to me for a moment, I may be able to explain it. This niece and adopted daughter of mine is ... is not my own daughter, of course.”
“Does any one believe that she is? The lady herself, for example?”
“If she did, I should not be inconvenienced in the way I am. Had I foreseen all contingencies, I should have brought her up in the belief that she was my own daughter. As far as giving her every advantage and indulgence that was in my power is concerned, no daughter of my own could have been treated differently. But though I omitted to disguise from her the fact that she was not my own flesh and blood, I was careful never to enlarge upon the misfortunes of her actual parentage. I never spoke to her about Charles Grantley. Whatever she may have learnt about him did not come from me. I have always discouraged all allusion to him, in fact; but a girl’s curiosity will be gratified even to her own hurt; and Perdita has more than once given me to understand that she knew her father’s name, if not his history.” Here Sir Francis paused, to pour himself out a glass of claret.
“Since the man is dead,” said Fillmore, “and his reputation not of the brightest, her knowing about him can injure no one but herself.”
“Let us put a case,” said the baronet, narrowing his eyes and turning his face toward the ceiling. “Let us suppose she were to say to herself, ‘My father disappeared so many years ago, a fugitive from justice. Some time after, report came of his death. Now, there may be true reports and there may be false reports. Has this report had such confirmation as to put its truth beyond all possibility of question? It has not. It is therefore within the range of possibility that it may be false. Now, whose interest would it be that a false report of that kind should be circulated? Who, and who only, would benefit by it? Who would be relieved by it from an imminent and incessant peril? Whom would its belief enable to begin a new career, unhampered by the delinquencies of his past? And to do this, perhaps, in the very spot where those former delinquencies had been committed? What—’ ”
“You mean to imply,” interposed Fillmore, “that your adopted daughter believes her father to be living in London?”
“Not so fast, not so fast, my friend! So far as I am aware, the idea has not entered into her mind. I am speaking of possibilities.”