"I am very foolish, guardian, not to have said it before; but I could not--and yet I ought and must."
Her hand was resting on a well-worn morocco case. I knew it well--it was Hugh's likeness, and a faint color tinged her white cheeks; but she mastered the shy feeling, whatever it was, and looked clearly and earnestly at me.
"Something was said by Lister Wilmot of what had dropped from poor Mr. Thorneley the last night of his life about you and me. I don't know why he should have repeated it; but as it is, I wanted to ask you not to mind it; at least, not to notice what may be said by others--by my mother. I only fear lest anything of the kind being said should come between us, and destroy our confidence in one another, because we understand each other so well--you and I and Hugh,"--how lingeringly she spoke his name!--"and we have no secrets between us that all three may not share. And I have feared lest this worse than foolishness, dragged out publicly, should change anything in our intercourse, or prevent you from acting, as hitherto, a parent's part toward a fatherless girl."
"Nothing, Ada, can change me toward you; and when people think of you and then of me, they will not heed the childish babble that may go about."
"Thanks, guardian."
"Worse than foolishness!"--I said the words over to myself many times as I drove back to Lincoln's Inn; and in the hazy distant future I saw a weary wayworn pilgrim slowly toiling along life's lonely road, who, looking back to this past year come and gone, would still repeat, "Worse than foolishness!"
I found Merrivale in deep conference with a mean-looking little man with a short stubbly head of hair that bristled up like a scrubbing-brush, and of a melancholy cast of countenance, as if accustomed to view life darkly, through the medium of duns and such-like evils to which man is heir. His eyes were the only redeeming point about him, and they really were two of the sharpest, most intelligent orbs I ever saw in my life. They lighted upon me the moment I entered the room, and seemed to take in my whole exterior and interior person with a knowingness that was perfectly alarming.
"This is the gentleman, I suppose, sir, who was with the defunct party the night of the murder," said a wonderfully soft voice.
"Yes; Mr. Kavanagh.--This is Inspector Keene, the very clever officer I mentioned to you, Kavanagh."
I acknowledged Mr. Keene's salute with becoming deference.