“For misconduct?”
“H’m! She said that the mistress of the establishment thought that some other system would suit her better. It sounds like a lie, and a bad lie, but she looked as if she were speaking truth; indeed, I am almost sure that she was.”
A memory of the air of perfect veracity with which Miss Ransome had dilated to himself upon Felicity’s immense admiration for his wife’s form of philanthropy—an admiration of whose non-existence she must have been as well aware as himself—made it difficult to Edward to endorse Camilla’s conviction; but he kept his difficulty, as he kept most things, to himself.
“If she speaks truth,” continued his wife, holding on apparently with desperation to the one rope thrown her by this possibility, “whatever awful facts she may tell us about herself—and, poor wretch, I suppose that she has not any others to tell—there will be hope for her, for us; there will be some basis to go upon; we shall know where we are.”
“And even if she does not?”
The supposition expressed was drawn from him involuntarily, and no sooner uttered than regretted.
“Have you any reason for supposing that she does not?”
His rejoinder was as disingenuous as his protégée’s would undoubtedly have been.
“I! Already! How is that possible?” His disclaimer was so completely successful that he felt compunction, and yet not so strongly as to regret having put his sleuth-hound off the scent.
“What were you going to say when I interrupted you?”