'Is this the first time you have found that out?' said Ethel.
'Why, you know it is not his nature to make the most of himself! But studying under him brings it out more; and there's a readiness about him that I wish was catching. But I say, Ethel, what's this? I no more doubt who did the deed, than I do who killed Abel; but I had once seen Cain's face, and I knew it again. Is it true that the boy was aware, and told my father?'
'Only asked if he had betrayed the secret. If they both know it--why, if it be Leonard's taste, I suppose I must say nothing to the contrary, but he might as well consider his sister.'
'What do you know, Tom?' said she, perplexed.
'Only that there's some secret; and if it be as I am given to understand, then it is a frenzy that no lucid person should permit.'
'No, Tom,' said Ethel, feeling that the whole must be told, 'it is no certainty--only unsupported suspicion, which he could not help telling papa after binding him on honour to make no use of it. Putting things together, he was sure who the man in the yard was; but it was not recognition, and he could not have proved it.'
'What Quixotry moved my father not to put the lawyers on the scent?'
Ethel explained; and for her pains Tom fell upon her for her folly in not having told him all, when he could have gone to Blewer and gathered information as no professional person could do; then lamented that he had let Aubrey keep him from the inquest, when the fellow's hang-dog look would have been sure to suggest to him to set Anderson to get him searched. Even now he would go to the mill, and try to hunt up something.
'Do you think a man can do nothing without committing himself, like poor Aubrey? No, Ethel, the Doctor may be clever, but that's no use if a man is soft, and he is uncommonly soft; and you should not encourage him in it.'
Ethel was prevented from expressing useless indignation by the arrival of Mary, asking where papa was.
'Gone to bed. He said he must go off at six to-morrow, there are so many patients to see. Ave does not want him, I hope?'
No, she is still asleep; I was only waiting for Richard, and he had dreadful work with that poor Henry.'
'Oh, I believe it has all come on him now that it was his fault--driving Leonard to that place; and he was in such misery, that Richard could not leave him.'