"But when you knew them," he says, "in Devonshire, they—they were all right then, were not they? they were well thought of?—there was nothing against them?"
"Good Heavens—no!" replies Jim heartily, thankful that the appeal is now so worded as to enable him to give a warm testimony in favour of his poor friends. "There was not a family in all the neighbourhood that stood so high. Everybody loved them; everybody had a good word for them."
Byng's countenance clears a little.
"And there is no reason—you have no reason for supposing anything different now?"
Jim stirs uneasily in his chair. Can he truthfully give the same convinced affirmative to this question as to the last? It is a second or two before he answers it at all.
"The facts of life are enough for me; I do not trouble myself with its suppositions."
He gets up and walks towards the door as he speaks, resolved to bring to an end this to him intolerable catechism.
"But you must have an opinion—you must think," cries the other's voice, persistently pursuing him. He turns at bay, with the door-handle in his hand, his eyes lightening.
"I asked her permission to bring Amelia to see her," he says, in a low moved voice; "if I had thought as ill of her as your mother does, do you think I should have done that?"