"Your manner tells me that you know she did, and your anxiety about her to-day convinces me that you have seen some account of the Hampstead tragedy."
"I do not know that she went there, but she knew Seligmann. I think that accounts for my anxiety."
"And for some reason you think it within the bounds of possibility that Miss Wickham may have attacked him. I may tell you that I do not believe she is responsible for the murder."
He did not answer.
Quarles, who had been gazing round the room, apparently uninterested in the conversation, turned suddenly.
"Evidently you don't agree with my friend, Mr. Marsh. You are not quite sure that Miss Wickham is innocent. It is a painful subject. May I ask if you are engaged to Miss Wickham?"
"Really, you——"
"I quite understand," said Quarles. "I am man of the world enough to understand the desirability of keeping such things secret. Family reasons. Her position and yours are so different. It would be awkward if such an engagement were to mean the stoppage of supplies. The head of the family has to be thought of. Peers do not always go to the stage for their wives."
"Sir, you overstep the limits of our short acquaintance," said Marsh with some dignity.
"Let me tell you, sir, that you treat the affair far too cavalierly. It looks as if Mr. Seligmann had been killed by a man rather than by a woman. You couldn't have read of the murder till this afternoon, yet you went to River Mansions this morning."