There was so much of it--taken as a whole. So many points that presented their own difficulties. The doubt as to whether Ella was the legal inheritor of Heron Dyke; the disappearance of Katherine Keen, and the superstition that arose out of it; the murder of the ill-fated Hubert Stone, and the robbery of the jewels: all these were matters of grave perplexity, upon which no light had yet been thrown.
Edward Conroy was puzzled by it all--just as Mr. Charles Plackett had been. He seemed never to tire of questioning Ella on this point and on that, and made notes sometimes of her answers: but he was none the nearer seeing his way to any elucidation.
"Have you fully calculated what the result to yourself will be if it is discovered that fraud has been at work?" he said to her one day, when they had been speaking of what had happened at Heron Dyke during her absence.
"Fully," replied Ella.
"Home, money, and lands--all will go from you."
"I know it. But would you have had me act otherwise than as I have acted?--would you have had me keep the doubt to myself?"
"Not for worlds."
"I think--I think, Edward, you are as anxious to discover the truth as I am."
"Quite as anxious."
"Although it be against your own interest. After all, it may be that you will have a penniless wife, compared with the rich one you expected."