"I will not listen to it!" interrupted Margaret, drawing herself up. "When Richard returns he will explain the matter to you,--not to me. If I required a word of denial from him, I should care very little whether he was innocent or not."
Mr. Slocum threw a terrified glance at his daughter. Her lofty faith sent a chill to his heart. What would be the result of a fall from such a height? He almost wished Margaret had something less of that ancestral confidence and obstinacy the lack of which in his own composition he had so often deplored.
"We are not to speak of this to Richard," he said, after a protracted pause; "at least not until Mr. Taggett considers it best. I have pledged myself to something like that."
"Has Richard been informed of Mr. Taggett's singular proceeding?" asked Margaret, freezingly.
"Not yet; nothing is to be done until Mr. Taggett returns from New York, and then Richard will at once have an opportunity of clearing himself."
"It would have spared us all much pain and misunderstanding if he had been sent for in the first instance. Did he know that this person was here in the yard?"
"The plan was talked over before Richard left; the details were arranged afterwards. He heartily approved of the plan."
A leisurely and not altogether saint-like smile crept into the corners of Margaret's mouth.
"Yes, he approved of the plan," repeated Mr. Slocum. "Perhaps he"--Here Mr. Slocum checked himself, and left the sentence flying at loose ends. Perhaps Richard had looked with favor upon a method of inquiry which was so likely to lead to no result. But Mr. Slocum did not venture to finish the suggestion. He had never seen Margaret so imperious and intractable; it was impossible to reason or to talk frankly with her. He remained silent, sitting with one arm thrown dejectedly across the back of the chair.
Presently his abject attitude and expression began to touch Margaret; there was something that appealed to her in the thin gray hair fallowing over his forehead. Her eyes softened as they rested upon him, and a pitying little tremor came to her under lip.