"Tell me one thing," I said. "What first made you suspect her?"
"You first made me suspect her, by what you said of her at Browndown," he answered. "Now carry your memory back to the time I have already mentioned in my letter—when she betrayed herself to you in the rectory garden. Is it true that she said you would have fallen in love with Nugent, if you had met him first instead of me?"
"It is true that she said it," I answered. "At a moment," I added, "when her temper had got the better of her—and when mine had got the better of me."
"Advance the hour a little," he went on, "to the time when she followed you to Browndown. Was she still out of temper, when she made her excuses to you?"
"No."
"Did she interfere, when Nugent took advantage of your blindness to make you believe you were talking to me?"
"No."
"Was she out of temper then?"
I still defended her. "She might well have been angry," I said. "She had made her excuses to me in the kindest manner; and I had received them with the most unpardonable rudeness."
My defence produced no effect on him. He summed it up coolly so far. "She compared me disadvantageously with Nugent; and she allowed Nugent to personate me in speaking to you, without interfering to stop it. In both these cases, her temper excuses and accounts for her conduct. Very good. We may, or may not, differ so far. Before we go farther, let us—if we can—agree on one unanswerable fact. Which of us two brothers was her favorite, from the first?"