“Common-sense, girl.”
“It was Ophelia’s word against Gabriel’s. You believed Ophelia.”
“The evidence was on her side. And why the devil should the woman kick up such a dust if she had suffered nothing?”
“Because that marriage was a mockery; because she did not love Gabriel; because she wanted to get back her liberty.”
John Strong leaned back and stared sullenly under his bushy brows towards the sea. Judith knew that he was thinking deeply, and that his thoughts were tinged with bitterness, the bitterness of a proud and self-righteous man half moved to confess himself deceived. Had not his own reason uttered these same words that he heard from Judith’s lips, and had he not hurled them again and again out of his heart with scorn?
“Judith,” he said, “I would give my right hand to know whether my son was a fool or a knave.”
“And the proof lies—”
“Partly with the woman for whom he ruined himself. Gabriel was always a dreamer and an enthusiast. I tried to break him of his Quixotism. That’s where we clashed.”
“And Joan Gildersedge?”
“The girl may have been an adventuress, or a mere twin fool to Gabriel. If I could have that girl’s heart like an open ledger before me, I wager I could discover who falsified the accounts.”