"Yes," said Pateley, "I believe that it is right, that it is justice." Then as he looked at her he suddenly became conscious of an unwonted difficulty of speech, of an almost unknown wave of emotion rising within him, of shrinking from the words he was now clear had to be said.
"Mrs. Rendel," he said at last, "I am afraid it will be very painful to you to hear what I am going to say."
She looked at him bewildered. He waited one moment, almost hoping that the truth might dawn upon her before he spoke, but she was a thousand miles from being anywhere near it. "Those papers which I published in the Arbiter the next morning were shown to me on the afternoon your husband had them to copy, by—" again the strange unfamiliar perturbation stopped him, and he felt he had to make a distinct effort to bring the name out—"your father, Sir William Gore."
Rachel said absolutely nothing. She looked at him with dilated eyes, incredulous amazement and then horror in her face, as she saw in his that he was telling her the truth.
"My father?" she said at last, with trembling lips.
"Yes," Pateley said. The worst was over now, he felt, and he had recovered possession of himself.
"No, no, it can't be!" she said miserably. "It's not possible...."
"I fear it is," said Pateley. "They were shown to myself, you see, so it is an absolute certainty."
"But when was it?" said Rachel, bewildered. "When did he have them?"