“You mean to tell me that the woman is presentable?”
“Far more presentable than I am. Do you think Gabriel would have risked all for a slattern?”
John Strong winced.
“Then whose fault was it?” he asked.
“Whose, indeed?”
“You tell me that Gabriel is an honest man, that the girl is all that she should be, while the law has declared for the Gusset woman. How can these things harmonize?”
“My dear father, do you trust Ophelia Gusset?”
John Strong considered his reply a moment, like a witness confronting an expert advocate.
“The law trusted her,” he said.
“What is the law?”