It had never occurred to her that her father was the lord of the manor. In her mind he was not a lord at all. He was simply a baronet.
How short-sighted she had been! Slowly the full meaning and significance of the fact worked its way into her brain, and her face flushed with shame and indignation. Why had not her father the courage to tell her the truth? Why had he allowed her to wrong Lord St. Goram even in thought? Why was he so relentless in his pursuit of the people he had treated so harshly? Was it true that people never forgave those they had wronged? Then her thoughts turned unconsciously to the Penlogans. How they must hate her father, and yet how sensitive they had been not to hurt her feelings. Even Ralph had allowed her to think that Lord St. Goram was the oppressor.
"He ought not to have deceived me," she said to herself, and yet she liked him all the more for his chivalry.
Her thoughts went back to that first day of their meeting, when she mistook him for a country yokel. Considering the fact that she was a lady, and on horseback, he had undoubtedly been rude to her, and yet he was rude in a manly sort of way. She liked him even then, and liked him all the more because he did not cringe to her.
But since then his every word and act had evinced the very soul of chivalry. In many ways he was much more a gentleman than Lord Probus. Indeed, she was inclined to think that in every way he was more of a gentleman. Lord Probus had wealth—fabulous wealth, it was believed—and a thin veneer of polish. But, stripped of the outer shell, she felt quite certain that the farmer's son was much more the gentleman of the two.
It was inevitable, however, that the subject should sooner or later crop up between the father and daughter, and when it did crop up, Sir John was quite unable to hide the bias of his mind.
"In tracking down a crime," he said, with quite a magisterial air, "the first thing to discover, if possible, is a motive. Given a motive, the rest is often comparatively easy. Now in this case I kept the motive from you, as I had no wish to prejudice the young man in your eyes. But in the preliminary trial, as you will have observed, the motive came out. Why he shot me is clear enough. Why he did not complete the work is due probably to failure of nerve; or possibly he thought I was dead, for I fell to the ground like a log."
"Why, father, you said you took to your heels and ran like the wind, and so got out of his reach."
"That was after I recovered myself, Dorothy. I admit I ran then."
"And you still believe that it was he who fired the shot?"