"That would seem to suggest that he might have been something to you once; or--you would hardly hate him."
"I don't know what you mean; he never was anything to me--never--except my guardian; at least, he said he was my guardian; and I suppose he was; but from the first moment I saw him I hated him."
"Isn't that, under the circumstances, rather a dangerous admission to make?"
"Why?"
"Mayn't some people think that your feeling towards him may have furnished a motive for--what happened?"
"Do you mean that some people may think that because I hated him I killed him? I hadn't the courage; I shouldn't have dared, I'm such a coward; it's because I'm such a coward that I'm here--it's all my cowardice!"
She sat with clenched fists staring in front of her; there was something in her expression which suggested to her companion that she was not quite such a coward as she asserted. When he spoke again it was as if a note of sympathy had, unawares, crept into his voice.
"You observed, Miss Gilbert, that George Emmett was your guardian, which seems to point to your having lost at least one of your parents. Is it your mother?"
"I never knew my mother--never; so far as I know, I never even saw her. I suppose I must have had a mother, but I don't know who she was, or anything at all about her."
"And your father?"