"That won't help him much. Good people are a queer set sometimes. But why should you interfere?"
"I cannot tell," replied Miriam, her voice beginning to shake; "but I thought and I thought over it, and it is so wrong, so unfair, so wicked, and I know the poor man so well. Why should they do anything to him?" She would have proceeded in the same strain, and would have compared the iniquity of arson with that of fraudulent contractors and the brutal Scrutton, but she checked herself. "He is not guilty," she added.
Mr. Mortimer was perplexed. He was accustomed in his profession to all kinds of concealment of motives, and he conjectured that there must be some secret of which he was unaware.
"Are you any relation?"
"No."
"Have you ever visited at his house, or has he been in the habit of calling at yours?"
"No."
He was still more perplexed. He could not comprehend, and might very well be excused for not comprehending, why the daughter of a respectable tradesman in Cowfold should walk six miles on behalf of a stranger, and be so anxious about him.
"One more question. You have had nothing whatever to do with Mr. Cutts, except by going to his shop, and by talking to him now and then as a neighbour?"
"Nothing;" and Miriam said it in such a manner, that the most hardened sceptic must have believed her.