He dropped his voice apologetically.

"I have been hearing of his going on in exactly the same way with
another."

"Oh," sighed Deb, relieved that it was not Mary who had been the
reviver; "then it's no business of ours, thank goodness."

"Pardon me--it is very much our business," he urged weightily.
"I grieve to tell you that it is your sister, Mrs Ewing, who is
implicated in the affair. Do you mean to say that you know nothing
about it?"

Deb knew something, and so she put the question by.

"I don't encourage scandalmongers. Mrs Ewing is young and thoughtless--
and pretty--which naturally lays her open to ill--natured gossip."
"My informant is one of the least ill-natured of women; she is a person
of the highest principle."

"Ah, those high-principled women--I know them!"

Mr Goldsworthy was nonplussed for the moment. He could not accept the
suggestion that Deb was not high-principled. But he gave up his
informant.

"There is ample evidence that the man is Mrs Ewing's lover," he
grieved. "He has been seen with her in the most equivocal situations. I
don't wish to go into details--to mention things unfit for a young