The sincere feeling behind his words drew out Scott's impatient reply.
"Woman! She's a child: not a day over twenty. A girl's too young at that age to marry and face this sort of thing. I'd make it illegal."
"My dear man, don't shout at me! I don't know how old she is: couldn't tell her from Eve, if I met her. I never saw her without that motor veil thing hanging over her face. She's lost her child, hasn't she?"
"She has."
"Do you know where she comes from, or anything about her people?"
"What the maid told me. She has no people. Lived till her marriage with an uncle and aunt who owed her a grudge about some money that was left to her over the uncle's head. They wouldn't let her speak to a man, for fear she should marry and they lose the enjoyment of it. Trent made her elope with him. Naturally she looked on him as a sort of St. George."
"A good thing he died before she found him out, then."
"He was a rascal, was he?"
"Well, he wasn't precisely a St. George."