'Poor child,' repeated Clissold, laying his hand gently, as priest or father might have laid it, on the soft brown hair, thrust back in a tangled mass from the hot brow. 'Poor children, children both. It would have been a foolish marriage at best, my dear girl, if he had lived, and kept in the same mind. Unequal marriages bring remorse and misery for the most part. James Penwyn was not a hard-working wayfarer like me, who may choose my wife at any turn on the world's high road. He was the owner of a good old estate, and the happiness of his future depended on his making a suitable marriage. His wife must have been somebody before she was his wife. She must have had her own race to refer to, something to boast of on her own side, so that when their children grew up they should be able to give a satisfactory account of their maternal uncles and aunts. I dare, say you think me worldly-minded, poor child; but I am only worldly-wise. If it were a question of personal merit you might have made the best of wives.' The girl heard this long speech with an absent air, her tearful eyes fixed on vacancy, her restless hands clasped tightly, as if she would fain have restrained her grief by that muscular grip. 'I don't know whether it was wise or foolish,' she said, 'but I know we loved each other.' 'I loved him too, Justina,' said Maurice, using her Christian name involuntarily—she was not the kind of person to be called Miss Elgood—'as well as one man can love another. I take his death quietly enough, you see, but I would give ten years of my life to find his murderer.' 'I would give all my life,' said Justina, with a look that made him think she would verily have done it. 'You know nothing more than you told at the inquest this afternoon?—nothing that could throw any light upon his death?' 'Nothing. You ought to know much more about it than I.' 'How so?' 'You know all that went before that time—his circumstances—his associates. I have lain awake thinking of this thing from night till morning, until I believe that every idea that could be thought about it has come into my head. There must have been some motive for his murder.' 'The motive seems obvious enough,—highway robbery.' 'Yet his watch was found in the ditch.' 'His murderer may naturally have feared to take anything likely to lead to detection. His money was taken.' 'Yes. It may have been for that. Yet it seems strange that he should have been chosen out of so many—that he should have been the only victim—murdered for the sake of a few pounds.' 'Unhappily, sordid as the motive is, that is a common kind of murder,' replied Maurice. 'But might not some one have a stronger motive than that?' 'I can imagine none. James never in his life made an enemy.' 'Are you quite sure of that?'