"It's not the business of a judge to prevent crime," said Meldon. "You mustn't mix him up with the police. The police have to see that people don't do what's wrong. Judges have to punish them afterwards for what the police fail to stop them from doing. The judge won't step out of his proper sphere and start doing police work. If he did there'd be endless confusion. And besides that, I don't expect the judge will think that she means to kill Simpkins. He doesn't understand as we do that she is acting in the interests of her art. She probably, in fact certainly, hasn't told him what she told me--that she has come to Ballymoy with the intention of going on with her work. He'll think that the narrow shave she had over the Lorimer affair will have given her a lesson, and that from now on she'll want to settle down and live a quiet, affectionate kind of life. When she kissed him in that spontaneous way this morning, what do you suppose was passing through his mind? What was he thinking? Remember that he hadn't seen her since the day of the trial, and then ask yourself what thoughts those two kisses would suggest to him." "I don't know. That she was glad to see him, I suppose." "A great deal more than that. A judge doesn't stop short at those superficial views of things. He looks deep down into the more recondite emotions of the human heart. As soon as he felt those kisses he said to himself: 'Here is a poor girl who's really sorry for what she's done--'" "I thought you said he didn't believe she'd done it. I certainly don't." "As a judge he doesn't; but I'm speaking of him now as an uncle, a simple unofficial uncle. As an uncle he can't help recollecting poor Lorimer, but he'll want to give his niece every possible fair play, and as soon as she showed signs of penitence--her kisses were a pretty convincing sign of penitence, considering the way he summed up against her--he'd be all for burying the past and letting her get a fresh start in life if she could." "Of course I don't attach the smallest importance to anything you've said. I don't believe, in the first place, that Miss King is Mrs. Lorimer. I don't believe any judge would try to hang his own niece. I don't believe, if he had tried her, he'd go and stop in the house with her afterwards, and I'm perfectly certain he wouldn't kiss her. But you apparently like to pretend to me that you do believe all the rot you've been talking, and that being so, I'd rather like to know what you intend to do next." "It doesn't in the least matter to you what I do," said Meldon. "If I'm the kind of drivelling idiot you make out, my actions are of no importance, either to you or to any one else." "All the same, I'd like to know what they're going to be." "Why?" "So that I can do my best to prevent their doing any irreparable mischief, if possible; though I don't expect it is possible."