She did not answer at once. He would remember that afterward: she hesitated, as if what she had to say was heavy and she did not want to drop it on him all at once. Then she said, "Ask Captain Stannard who paid his debts on Tuesday."
Every head turned to Stannard. His face, Edmund thought, was the face of a man watching his own house burn from across a river. There was nothing to be done about it, so he might as well watch.
"Hugo?" Darnell said. "Hugo, what does she mean?"
"She means," said Stannard, "precisely what she said." He looked down at the pistol in his hand as though he had just noticed it. "I think I had better not hold this."
IV
The story came out in pieces, in the wet grey meadow, while the sun found its way through the last of the fog and lit the dew on everything until the whole field glittered like a jeweller's tray. Sophia told most of it. She told it the way Edmund had heard her argue for Mrs. Mercer's pension in February, plainly and in order, with no ornament, every fact set down like a coin on a counter.
"Captain Stannard's sister Jane sits on the committee of my fund," she said. "The Seamen's Widows' and Orphans' Relief. She has sat on it for three years and has never missed a meeting, though I know for a fact she sometimes walks from Kensington because she has no fare for a hackney. On Wednesday she came to me in tears. Not unhappy tears. She was so relieved she could hardly speak. Her brother's debts had been paid. All of them, three thousand one hundred and forty pounds, owed to a bill-broker in Jermyn Street called Hobday, who had threatened the Fleet Prison by midsummer. Jane and her mother live in two rooms on her brother's half-pay and what he wins at cards, and they had been expecting to lose even the rooms. Now all at once everything was paid. She showed me Mr. Hobday's letter to her brother. It said the bills had been taken up in full on Tuesday the seventh of June by Mr. Silas Pruett, acting for a principal who preferred not to be named."
Edmund felt the name go into him like cold water.
"I knew it," Sophia said, watching him. "You'd mentioned him to me. Your father's man of business, who has been with him since before you were born. I thought it was a coincidence, because I wanted it to be one. Then on Thursday night, Captain Stannard stood up at the Cocoa Tree and said what he said about me, in a voice loud enough to reach the street. And on Friday morning all London knew you had challenged him." She drew breath. "I'm not a fool, Mr. Garrow. A man whose debts are paid by your father on Tuesday does not insult your friend in front of you on Thursday by accident."
"Your friend," Edmund repeated, not really meaning to.
"Don't," she said quickly. "Not now. Let me finish." She took a folded paper from inside her cloak. Her fingers were white with cold. "Last night I went to the Golden Cross at Charing Cross. I wore Tibby's cloak and bonnet and gave an ostler a guinea, and I'm not sorry, though Tibby says I've disgraced her bonnet for good. On Thursday afternoon a chariot and four was ordered from that yard, to be at Chalk Farm by half past four this morning and ready for the Dover road. It was ordered by Mr. Silas Pruett. A berth was also taken through the yard's agent on this evening's packet from Dover to Calais." She unfolded the paper. Her voice stayed steady, but Edmund saw what it cost her. "For Mr. E. Garrow, *an invalid*, and attendant."
She held the paper out. Edmund did not take it. He did not need to.