said
nothing.

"You thought it possible," said Trent meditatively, "may I say you
thought it practically certain?--that I should find out for myself that
there had been something deeper than a mere conjugal tiff between the
Mandersons. You thought that my unwholesome imagination would begin at
once to play with the idea of Mrs. Manderson having something to do with
the crime. Rather than that I should lose myself in barren speculations
about this, you decided to tell me exactly how matters stood, and
incidentally to impress upon me, who know how excellent your judgment
is, your opinion of your niece. Is that about right?"

"It is perfectly right. Listen to me, my dear fellow," said Mr. Cupples
earnestly, laying his hand on the other's arm. "I am going to be very
frank. I am extremely glad that Manderson is dead. I believe him to have
done nothing but harm in the world as an economic factor. I know that he
was making a desert of the life of one who was like my own child to me.
But I am under an intolerable dread of Mabel being involved in suspicion
with regard to the murder. It is horrible to me to think of her delicacy
and goodness being in contact, if only for a time, with the brutalities
of the law. She is not fitted for it. It would mark her deeply. Many
young women of twenty-five in these days could face such an ordeal, I
suppose. I have observed a sort of imitative hardness about the products
of the higher education of women to-day which would carry them through
anything, perhaps. I am not prepared to say it is a bad thing in the
conditions of feminine life prevailing at present. Mabel, however, is
not like that. She is as unlike that as she is unlike the simpering
misses that used to surround me as a child. She has plenty of brains;
she is full of character; her mind and her tastes are cultivated; but it
is all mixed up"--Mr. Cupples waved his hands in a vague gesture--"with
ideals of refinement and reservation and womanly mystery. I fear she is
not a child of the age. You never knew my wife, Trent. Mabel is my
wife's child."

The younger man bowed his head. They paced the length of the lawn before
he asked gently: "Why did she marry him?"

"I don't know," said Mr. Cupples briefly.

"Admired him, I suppose," suggested Trent.

Mr. Cupples shrugged his shoulders. "I have been told that a woman will
usually be more or less attracted by the most successful man in her
circle. Of course we cannot realize how a w