“I had nowhere – else to go,” Devona said in a low voice.
“Who did you talk to?” the Earl asked. “I cannot believe my uncle was much of a conversationalist. Have you friends in the neighbourhood?”
Devona shook her head.
“Then it’s true that Uncle Walter really saw no one and hated people coming to the house in case it cost him anything.”
He spoke so scornfully that Devona felt ashamed at pretending to be a relation of the dead man.
In a low voice, because she was feeling nervous at standing up for him, she added,
“I think we have to admit that your uncle – was not normal and that being a miser is almost the same as having a nasty disease. If they cannot cure themselves, you cannot blame them – too strongly for suffering from it.”
The Earl smiled.
“That is certainly a new way of put
