His own ultimate judgment was that you cannot expect men to be perfect, and that great causes have often been served by very indifferent characters.
'She looks shockingly ill,' he began to-night when alone with Stella.
'Wasn't there something said about consumption when she was at Exmouth?
Has she any cough ?' 'No, I don't think it is that,' Stella answered.
'She seems glad to be with you.' 'Very glad, I think.' 'Did the loss of her child affect her deeply ?' 'I cannot say.

She has never spoken of it.' 'Poor child!' Stella made no reply to the exclamation.
The next day Adela went to call on Mrs.Rodman.It was a house in Bayswater, not large, but richly furnished.

Adela chose a morning hour, hoping to find her sister-in-law alone, but in this she was disappointed.

Four visitors were in the drawing-room, three ladies and a man of horsey appearance, who talked loudly as he leaned back with his legs crossed, a walking-stick held over his knee, his hat on the ground before him.

The ladies were all apparently middle-aged; one of them had a great quantity of astonishingly yellow hair, and the others made up for deficiency in that respect with toilets in very striking taste.
The subject under discussion was a recent murder.