etitia. In fact, she went the length of discrediting it
altogether, as "Only Goody Wilson, when all was said and done." The
fact that her mother had told her so little never seemed to strike her
as strange or to call for comment. It was right that it should be so,
because it was in her mother's jurisdiction, and what she did or said
was right. Cannot most of us recall things unquestioned in our youth
that we have marvelled at our passive acceptance of since? Sally's
mother's silence about her father was ingrained in the nature of
things, and she had never speculated about him so much as she had done
since Professor Wilson's remark across the table had led to Laetitia's
tale about Major Roper and the tiger-shooting.

Sally's version of her mother's history was comforting to her hearer on
one point: it contained no hint that the fugitive to Australia was not
her father. Now, the fact is that the doctor, in repeating what his
mother had said to him, had passed over some speculations of hers about
Sally's paternity. No wonder the two records confirmed each other,
seeing that the point suppressed by the doctor had been studiously
kept from Sally by all her informants. He, for his part, felt that the
bargain did not include speculations of his mother's.

"Well, doctor?" Thus Sally, at the end of a very short pause for
consideration. Vereker does not seem to need a longer one. "You mean,
Miss Sally, do I think people talk spitefully of Mrs. Nightingale--I
suppose I must say Mrs. Fenwick now--behind her back? Isn't that the
sort of question?" Sally, for response, looks a little short nod at the
doctor, instead of words. He goes on: "Well, then, I don't think they
do. And I don't think you need fret about it. People will talk about
the story of the quarrel and separation, of course, but it doesn't
follow that anything will be said against either your father or mother.
Things of this sort happen every day, with fault on neither side."

"You think it was just a row?"

"Most likely. The only thing that seems to me to tell against your
father is what you said your mother said just now--something about
having forgiven him for your sake." Sally repeats her nod. "Well,
even that might be accounted for by supposing that he had been very
hot-tempered and unjust and violent. He was quite a young chap, you
see...."

"You mean like--like supposing Jeremiah were to go into a tantrum now
and flare up--he does sometimes--and then they wer