He laboured through it, however, while Meynell sat with bent head, looking at the floor, making no sign whatever. And at last the speaker arrived at the incident of the Grenoble visitor.
"I naturally find this a very disagreeable task," he said, pausing a moment. He got, however, no help from Meynell, who was dumb; and he presently resumed—"Judith Sabin saw the gentleman who came distinctly. She felt perfectly certain in her own mind as to his relation to Miss Puttenham and the child; and she was certain also, when she saw you and Miss Puttenham standing in the road, while I was with her that—"
Meynell looked up, slightly frowning, awaiting the conclusion of the sentence—
—"that she saw—the same man again!"
Barron's naturally ruddy colour had faded a little; his eyes blinked. He drew his coat forward over his knee, and put it back again nervously.
Meynell's face was at first blank, or bewildered. Then a light of understanding shot through it. He fell back in his chair with an odd smile.
"So that—is what you have in your mind?"
Barron coughed a little. He was angrily conscious of an anxiety and misgiving he had not expected. He made all the greater effort to recover what seemed to him the proper tone.
"It is all most sad—most lamentable. But I had, you perceive, the positive statement of a woman who should have known the facts first-hand, if any one did. Owing to her physical state, it was impossible to cross-examine her, and her sudden death made it impossible to refer her to you. I had to consider what I should do—"
"Why should you have done anything—" said Meynell dryly, raising his eyes—"but forget as quickly as possible a story you had no means of verifying, and which bore its absurdity on the face of it?"