"Is it so very surprising? Would you not think me a hypocrite if I were to profess to be heart-broken about this—this wretched blind cripple, who was the cause of it all?"
This took place in the garden, where the father and daughter had walked apart, to be alone, away from the house. Judith had really been as anxious to speak with him as he with her. But she was not in love with this turn in the conversation. As she stood with bitten lip and flashing eye in front of the wires of a cage containing a sulphur-crested cockatoo—for they were close to the aviary where she and Challis had talked about the parroquets—a hideous shriek from the bird caught her last words, and almost seemed a vindictive endorsement of their spirit.
Her father, to whom the death of the innocent man was a thing that threw all other disquiets into the shade, suppressed whatever he felt of resentment or disgust, and showed only wonderment. "My dear child," said he, "you are not yourself. If you were, you could not say such things. I can hardly believe that you realize that the man is dead when you speak so." He stopped a moment, puzzled. "I suppose, though, he must have been still alive when you last saw him?"
"Oh yes, he was shouting. But I knew he went under the wheel. I felt him." Her father shuddered, but she seemed calm.
"Did you not see him again?"
"No—that was the last I saw of him. I never looked for him.... Well!—I thought Sir Alfred Challis was killed."
The Baronet felt apologetic. "I see, my dear, of course! Yes—yes—that would be so. I suppose the poor fellow must have had life enough in him to get off the road ... only ... well!—I don't understand...."
"What doesn't my papa understand?" There is again the shade of the old family tradition of patronage in her voice. Disinclination to accept it in this case may have roughened her father's reply a little:
"I don't understand what Taylor said. I'm sure—yes, I'm sure!—he said he found him lying in the road. You must have passed him as you returned?"
"Very likely."