“Why should he? She has, I believe, been his companion for years, ever since her childhood.”
“I know. You are Shaw’s friend, and, of course, pooh-pooh any suspicion there may be against him. Asta is devoted to his interests, and hence blind to the bitter hatred which he is so cleverly concealing.”
“But what causes you to suspect this?” I asked, looking at him very seriously, as he stood leaning upon the old lichen-covered wall, his dark thoughtful face turned towards the setting sun.
“Well, I have more than suspicion, Kemball. I have proof.”
“Of what?”
“Of what I allege,” he cried, in a low, confidential tone. “This man Shaw is not the calm, generous, easy-going man he affects to be.”
I was silent. What could he know? Surely Asta had not betrayed her foster-father! Of that I felt confident.
“But you say you have proof. What is the nature of the proof?”
“It is undeniable. This man, under whose guardianship Asta has remained all these years, has changed towards her. There’s evil in his heart.”
“Then you fear that—well, that something may happen, eh?—that he might treat her unkindly. Surely he is not cruel to her!”