"I don't know. What makes you ask?"
"Why, we think he wasn't always a workingman. Tom says he looks as if he had been in some kind of business, and then failed."
"What makes you think that, Tom?" I asked the boy.
"Oh, I don't know. He speaks so well."
"He always spoke well, poor fellow," I said with a vague amusement. "And you're quite right, Tom. He was in business once and he failed—badly."
I went up to my wife's room and told her what the children had said of Tedham's call, and that he was coming back again.
"Well, then, I think I shall let you see him alone, Basil. I'm completely worn out, and besides there's no reason why I should see him. I hope you'll get through with him quickly. There isn't really anything for you to say, except that we have seen the Haskeths, and that if he is still bent upon it he can find his daughter there to-morrow evening. I want you to promise me that you will confine yourself to that, Basil, and not say a single word more. There is no sense in our involving ourselves in the affair. We have done all we could, and more than he had any right to ask of us, and now I am determined that he shall not get anything more out of you. Will you promise?"
"You may be sure, my dear, that I don't wish to get any more involved in this coil of sin and misery than you do," I began.
"That isn't promising," she interrupted. "I want you to promise you'll say just that and no more."
"Oh, I'll promise fast enough, if that's all you want," I said.