"I shall be willing to give it to you," she said, demurely, and waited expectantly, but he said nothing more. He was thinking of Margaret again.
"Do you know anything of Vincent's people—has he got any besides this brother out in Australia?" he asked.
"He's never spoken of them—not even of the brother, till last year. I must tell you frankly, Mr. Garratt, that I never liked him. He is a man who has rejected religion, and brought up his child to do the same."
"You know, it strikes me somehow that they are swells," Mr. Garratt said, confidentially, "who have done something shady; or perhaps he did something shady himself, there's never any telling. It may be that he was suddenly afraid of being found out, and has taken himself off altogether. You've only his word for it that he's got a brother, I suppose?"
Hannah looked at him, dismayed. This idea would cover many odd feelings and instincts that she had encouraged in regard to Mr. Vincent. That he should be some sort of criminal in disguise seemed feasible enough when she remembered his opinions, and that he should desert his wife and daughter would be a natural outcome of them.
"He had letters with the Australian postmark," she said, remembering this proof of her step-father's veracity.
"They might be managed," Mr. Garratt answered, in a knowing manner that added to Hannah's consternation.
"There's some one that knows him come to see mother now. I was looking for Margaret, and didn't stay to hear his name."
"It's probably the gent who's taken the house on the hill; we might go and see what he's like," Mr. Garratt said, quickly, and turned towards the house, elated at the thought of meeting on terms of more or less equality some one whom in the ordinary course he would have had to treat with the respect due to a superior.
But Sir George Stringer had been and gone. He was just going when Margaret returned.