"I know that Sir Joseph goes out night after night prowling about the streets. Ugh! the horrid old man."
"How dare you!" cried Audrey, flaming up. "Papa goes to help the poor."
Mrs. Mellop laughed contemptuously. "Sir Joseph never helped a single poor person in his life," she said sneeringly. "He goes out for no good purpose, you may be sure. Why, he was out on the night his wife was murdered," hinted Mrs. Mellop, malignantly. "I believe he had something to do with the matter."
Audrey had no reason to be fond of her father, who had always treated her selfishly. But this unfounded accusation was too much for her. She sprang at the little widow and shook her. "How dare you talk in that way?" she said in a cold, hard voice. "You can't connect my father with--"
"Oh, can't I?" interrupted Mrs. Mellop, extricating herself from the girl's grasp with a shriek. "Why, when I was waiting in Walpole Lane on that night I saw your father on the other side of the road."
"You are a fool!" said Miss Branwin, trying to conceal her agitation. "Even if you saw papa, that proves nothing. And you had better hold your tongue, or you will get into trouble."
Mrs. Mellop ran to the door of the room, so as to avoid another shaking. "I shall get Sir Joseph into trouble," she said spitefully. "He shan't play fast and loose with poor little me. I shall go back home to-day."
"Had you not better see papa?" asked Audrey, ironically, "and say what you intend to do?"
"I know what I intend to do," retorted the widow, tossing her head, "and it won't be pleasant for Sir Joseph when he knows. You're a horrid girl, Audrey, and worthy of your common father, who is only the son of a labourer, when all is said and done. I decline to associate with such riff-raff, so good-day to both of you." And Mrs. Mellop, bursting with spite, swept out of the room in what she conceived was a grand way.
Audrey shrugged her shoulders when the little woman disappeared, as she regarded the hinted accusation as merely due to spite; and without doubt it was, as Mrs. Mellop could not possibly prove Branwin's complicity in the crime. Sir Joseph certainly might have been in Walpole Lane, although Audrey did not think that this was probable. Yet, even if he had been, his presence, as the girl had already observed, proved absolutely nothing.