“Methylated spirits?” he threw in, disobedient to his wife’s hest, and she avenged herself by beginning all over again.
“‘You remember my old acquaintance, Lady Ransome? She died under rather disastrous circumstances three months ago. I had done what I could for her, but it was one of those hopelessly inveterate cases of degradation for which no human aid is of any avail; and she died in a very distressing way last August. Tom went to the funeral.’
“I remember hearing that he was the only person who did, besides the two sham widowers who followed her in crape and weepers to Kensal Green.” The interruption this time emanated from the reader herself.
“‘Tom went to the funeral, and came back full of pity for the girl whom I believe to be really Lord Ransome’s daughter. We may as well give her the benefit of the doubt, at all events, though his—Lord Ransome’s—family decline to believe it, and refuse to do anything for her in consequence. As her family repudiated Claire’——”
“Who is Claire?”
“Why, the girl, of course! No, it is not. I see further down that the girl is Bonnybell. Claire must be the mother.
“‘As her family repudiated Claire when first she took to evil courses, the poor child has not a relation in the world to turn to, nor a roof to cover her. At the present moment she is with us, and as far as I am concerned might remain so indefinitely; but, then, Tom put his foot down.’”
Again one of the Tancred couple smiled with rich amusement.
“‘Under the circumstances it has struck me—I throw out the suggestion for what it is worth—that you might like to have her as an inmate, at all events for a while.’”
“We?”