"Still it must have been a terrible shock. And if she cared about burying him,--"
"You're too tender-hearted, Fellows," I said. But I confess that I liked his betrayal of sympathy. He was too unemotional as a rule.
Well, that brings me down to my interview with Garney, which took place that afternoon.
Mr. Garney was one of the regular faculty at Vandeventer College, and to meet his convenience I asked him to fix the time and place for the interview which I desired. He said he would come to my office at four, and he kept his appointment promptly. I had told Jean Benbow that if she could come to my office at half past four, I would take her down to see her brother. She came fifteen minutes ahead of time,--and that's how she came into the story. Into that part of the story, I mean. But I had all that Garney could probably tell me before she came in and disconcerted him. I think my first question surprised him.
"Mr. Garney, do you know anything to Eugene Benbow's discredit?"
He looked at me with an intentness that I found was habitual with him, as though he weighed my words before he answered them.
"You don't mean trivial faults?"
"No. I mean anything serious."
He shook his head. "No. He is an exceptionally fine fellow in every way. High-spirited and honorable. I suppose his sensitiveness to his family honor, as he conceives it, may be called a fault, since it has unbalanced him to the extent of leading him into a crime."
"You know of no absorbing entanglement, either with man or woman?"