Mathias was incredulous.

“Is it possible for children to be mistaken in a man’s whole nature like that?”

The look of irony on Thornton’s face attained an intensity that was almost diabolical.

“I think it is possible,” he said, “even for children to make such a mistake.”

“But this⁠ ⁠… affection: it is highly improbable.”

“It is a fact.”

Mathias shrugged. After all, a criminal lawyer is not concerned with facts. He is concerned with probabilities. It is the novelist who is concerned with facts, whose job it is to say what a particular man did do on a particular occasion: the lawyer does not, cannot be expected to go further than to show what the ordinary man would be most likely to do under presumed circumstances.