CHAPTER 15I went back across the slippery street a very bewildered woman. For one thing, I was quite certain that inviting me to tea had been Philander Doyle’s idea, not Miss Isabel’s. And for another, that she had had a vague notion of what his purpose had been in asking me.
Whether she’d known it from the beginning, or had sorted it out with the garments that would certainly amuse the lepers if nothing else, I hadn’t an idea. That she’d let slip an eternal truth when she said it was unfortunate that her brother disliked the Candlers so much, I was almost as certain as I was that it was dark and twenty minutes past six on a winter day…and I hadn’t a doubt that her brother would have strangled her if he knew she’d said it.
Nevertheless, as I went up the Candlers’ steps, with the pale yel
