If he had died a ruined
man, I should have felt deeply for his children: but I should not have
hesitated to tell you the truth, as I am hesitating now. Let me repeat
a question which escaped you, I think, when I first put it. Carry your
mind back to the spring of this year. Do you remember the fourth of
March?"
Miss Garth shook her head. "My memory for dates is bad at the best of
times," she said. "I am too confused to exert it at a moment's notice.
Can you put your question in no other form?"
He put it in this form:
"Do you remember any domestic event in the spring of the present year
which appeared to affect Mr. Vanstone more seriously than usual?"
Miss Garth leaned forward in her chair, and looked eagerly at Mr.
Pendril across the table. "The journey to London!" she exclaimed. "I
distrusted the journey to London from the first! Yes! I remember Mr.
Vanstone receiving a letter--I remember his reading it, and looking so
altered from himself that he startled us all."
"Did you notice any apparent understanding between Mr. and Mrs. Vanstone
on the subject of that letter?"
"Yes: I did. One of the girls--it was Magdalen--mentioned the post-mark;
some place in America.
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