She had neither reason nor evidence from which to draw this inference.

It was no more than the instinct whose voice cries out to us at times a presage of ill, and oftentimes compels our attention in a degree far higher than any evidence could command.
The fear that was in her urged her to seek what information she could on every hand, but without success.

From none could she cull the merest scrap of evidence to assist her.
But on the morrow she had information as prodigal as it was unlooked-for, and from the unlikeliest of sources--her father himself.
Chafing at his inaction and lured into indiscretions by the subsiding of the pain of his wound, Gregory quitted his bed and came below that night to sup with his daughter.

As his wont had been for years, he drank freely.

That done, alive to the voice of his conscience, and seeking to drown its loud-tongued cry, he drank more freely still, so that in the end his henchman, Stephen, was forced to carry him to bed.
This Stephen had grown grey in the service of the Ashburns, and amongst much valuable knowledge that he had amassed, was a skill in dealing with wounds and a wide understanding of the ways to go about healing them.