"Is anyone here ignorant enough to assert that this scar is the result of the blow of a girl's fist?" demanded Percivale, raising his head. "It has been done with a stick—a heavy stick. See, it has grazed the skin right across; you can follow the direction of it. Does Miss Brabourne carry a weapon of that description?"
"She had no stick when we met her in the lane yesterday," said Claud, eagerly.
"Idiot! As if she could not throw away a dozen on her way home from here," passionately broke in Mrs. Orton.
"Ottilie," said her husband, in a low, warning voice, "take care."
"Take care! Too late to say that now," she cried. "Why didn't I take care sooner—care of my poor little boy? Why did I ever send him to this den of assassins? But, thank Heaven, we are in England, and shall have justice—a life for a life," she concluded, wildly.
"We are willing to make all possible allowances for Mrs. Orton's feelings," said Percivale, with great gentleness. "I must agree with her that it is much to be regretted that she trusted such a delicate child, and one on whose life so much depended, out of her own personal care."
"What do you mean, sir?" cried Ottilie, suddenly.
"What do I mean? Merely what I said, madam," he answered, astonished.
"You are trying to make insinuations," she cried, too excited to think of prudence. "What depended on Godfrey's life? Do you suppose I am thinking of the paltry few hundreds a year we received for taking care of him?"
"Madam," he replied at once, "an hour since you did not scruple openly, in the presence of numbers of people, to accuse Miss Brabourne of murdering her brother to obtain his fortune; I am therefore not surprised that you imagine others may be ready to supply a base motive for your grief at his death. Believe me, however, my imagination is not so vivid as yours; what you suggest had not occurred to me until you mentioned it."