Stephen smiled grimly. This was straight talk. Plain speaking always appealed to him even when, as now, it was at his expense.
"Are you certain that your friend did not burn her brother's I O U?" he said after a pause.
"I am absolutely certain. Remember her face. Now, Mr Vanbrunt, think. Don't confuse your mind with ideas of what women generally are. Think of her. Are not you certain too?"
"Yes," he said slowly, "I am. She is concealing something. She has done some folly, and is bolstering it up by a stupid lie. But the other, that's swindling—no, she did not do that."
"Then help the side of truth," said Anne. "My own conviction is that she burned something compromising Mrs Brand, at Mrs Brand's dying request, under an oath of secrecy. And that is why her mouth is shut. But this is only a supposition. I ask you not to repeat it. I only mention it because you are so——" she shot a glance at him unlike any, in its gentle raillery, that had fallen to his lot for many a long day—"so stubborn."
He was unreasonably pleased.
"I should still be in a dry goods warehouse in Hull if I had not been what you call stubborn," he said, smiling at her.
"May I ask you a small favour for myself?" she said. "So far I have only asked for my friend."
"It seems hardly necessary to ask it. Only mention it."
"If my mother talks to you, and she talks to you a great deal, do not mention to her our—our conversation of last night. It would be kinder to me."