"But then, why am I put in the wrong? Those are the charges against me. Those, and that I offered Sedbergh the price of the necklace--which he refused. Yes, he did refuse it, and made me feel, too, that I ought not to have asked him to accept it. Why did I feel that? It isn't that he was wrong. He was right, and I should have acted as he did if I had been in his place. But why did I feel ashamed of having offered it to him? What was the alternative? To say nothing about it to him, when Susan had spent thousands of pounds belonging to him, and I knew of it? Can anyone seriously say that that was a more honourable course to take than the one I did take? Nina, help me.

Tell me where I was wrong. I _must_ have been wrong there, because I felt ashamed."

"It is easy enough now to mark down little errors. In the main, Edward dear, you were right all through--n.o.bly right."

"Little errors! What error was there there? I either offered him the money, or kept from him the fact that a member of my family had spent it. There was no alternative. _Was_ there? Do tell me, Nina, if you can see anything that I can't see."

"I think the better way would have been to tell Lord Sedbergh of what had been done, and leave it to him to take steps if he wished to. He would have taken none. You would have been justified. You could not justify yourself any more by paying him back what had been stolen."

"Yes, that is what he said. He would not bear my burden. Why should he have? Yes. I see that, Nina. I was wrong there. I think I was very wrong there."

Oh, how it rent her heart to hear him, who had been so ready with his dictatorial censure of all dependent on him, so impervious to every shaft of censure that might have been attracted to himself, thus baring his breast to blame, accepting it, welcoming it, if it would only help to clear away his bewilderment.

"It came to the same thing, dear, in the end," she reminded him. "You had told Lord Sedbergh."

"Ah, but it wasn't quite the same. I can see that now. If I had gone to him as you said, I could have denied the statement that I kept silence. I should have told the one man that perhaps it was right that I should have told. I am beginning to see a little light, Nina.

Nothing more could have been expected of me than that. I should have had a complete answer. Oh, why did I make that mistake? It looked to me, afterwards, such a small one. Sedbergh set me right over it--snubbed me really, though in the kindest possible way--and I deserved it. But that didn't end it. That mistake put everything else wrong. I am beginning to see it. But, oh, how difficult it all is!"

"Edward, you _had_ told Lord Sedbergh. You told him before you made any suggestion as to payment. He had thought the matter was ended when he had said you were right to tell him, and there was nothing more to be done. You have told me that whenever you have gone over the conversation you had with him."

He thought over this. His slow-moving mind was made preternaturally acute by long dwelling on the one interminable subject. "Should I have told him anything?" he asked, "if I hadn't wanted to get the debt off my shoulders? No, I think not. Humphrey would not have consented for one thing, and I had given him my word. I suppose I was wrong there too. I ought never to have given him my word. Yet he would not have told me if I had not."

"That is Humphrey's blame. He asked you to keep dishonourable silence.

You trusted him there. You would not have promised that."

"Then my silence was dishonourable?"

"You told Lord Sedbergh. I think you would have told him in any case.

I think that you would have seen that you must. You would have insisted with Humphrey; and you must have had your way. You have acted so honourably where you did see clearly, that I have no doubt you would have seen clearly here. You had no time to think. You were under the influence of the sudden shock. You went up to London to see Lord Sedbergh the very next morning."

"It was pride," he said slowly. "The wrong pride. I have been very blind to my faults, Nina. Pride of place, pride of wealth, pride of birth! What are they in a crisis like this? I was humiliated to the dust before that man this morning. Oh, I have seen myself in a wrong light all my life. G.o.d has sent me this trial to show me how little worth I was in His sight. My pride led me wrong. Why was I thinking then about the money at all? Sedbergh was right. That woman was right, there. It was a base thought, and I have been very heavily punished for it."

She lay by his side, comforting him. She thought that he would now cease his self-examination, since it had led him to a conclusion damaging to himself, but healing too, if he saw a fault and repented of it. But presently he returned to it again.

"Why did I feel beaten and ashamed before Cheviot? Why has he the right to say those d.a.m.ning words to his nephew, 'I shall tell him that I brought you a definite charge made against your honour, and you did not deny it'?"

"Edward dear, you might have denied it, but for one thing. The charge against you was not true."

"But it was true. I knew of Susan's guilt, and money was paid to keep it secret--money that I knew had been paid."

"That you allowed to be paid," she corrected him. "You did not allow it. It was not paid to keep the secret. Virginia paid it, on behalf of d.i.c.k, and paid it with quite a different intention."

"Isn't that a mere quibble?"

"No, it is not. A quibble is a half-truth that obscures a whole one.

This is not like that. It is because the whole truth is so difficult to disengage here that it looked like the half-truth. I say nothing of Humphrey; but as regards you it is the whole truth. It is not true--it is a lie--to say that you allowed money to be paid to conceal what you knew. You refused to pay money yourself, because you knew it would have the indirect effect of concealing the truth. It was not in your power to stop the money being paid with an innocent object. And when it is said that you knew of Susan's guilt, if that is in itself a charge of keeping silence, the answer is that you did not keep silence.

You told Lord Sedbergh. That you offered him the money afterwards is nothing--would, I mean, be considered nothing against you, as coming afterwards. As it is put in that letter it is as untrue as the rest; for it is intended there to look as if you had offered that money too in order to buy silence."

"My dear," he said, "you have a very clever head. I wonder if you are right. That would exonerate me of everything."

"You _are_ to be exonerated of everything," she said quietly, "except the mistake of thinking it more important that Lord Sedbergh should be told because of the debt that lay heavy on you than because it was right that he should be told in any case. You did tell him, which is all that anyone inclined to criticise you is concerned with, and _I_ know well enough that you would have told him if there were no question of payment. My dear husband, you have been so cast down by the blows you have received that you are inclined to blame yourself, knowing everything, as others are inclined to blame you, knowing nothing."

This was sweet balm to him, and he lay comforting himself with it for some time. But his doubts came back to him.

"Then why did I feel so ashamed before Cheviot?"

She was ready with her answer at once. "For a reason that does you more honour than anything else. You took the sins of others upon you.

You took shame before him, not for your own faults, but for theirs. If you could have told him everything, he would have seen what even you couldn't see at the time--that the apparent truth in that letter was not the truth. The only true thing in it was that Susan was guilty."

"And that I knew it."

"There was no shame in that, to you, unless you kept silence, which you did not do."

"I can't see that quite straight yet, Nina, though I should like to.

Why are you so sure that I should have told Sedbergh in any case, or insisted upon Humphrey telling him?"

"Because I see so plainly how your mind has worked all along. It never did work on that point, because you took the right course at once--we will say, if you like, for not quite the right reason--and it was never a matter to be fought out with yourself. It had been done."

"You are very comforting to me, my dearest. I do believe you are right. I say it in all humility; I think I should not have been allowed to go wrong there."

"I am sure you would not; quite sure. Even with your pride to guide you, as you say it did, you could not have consented long to hold back the truth from Lord Sedbergh. Him, at least, you must have told--as you did."

"Well, I give in, Nina. You give me great comfort."

"And I give you great honour too, Edward. You have taken the burden and the shame on yourself when a word would have removed it."

"Not only on myself, Nina. You share it. We all share it; our poor little Joan more heavily than any of us."

"I cannot but think that Joan will win her happiness in time. He would not be what he is if he allowed this to keep him from her. The talk will die down. No one will blame her--can blame her--even now, when it is at its loudest. We must wait in patience for what will come. Dear Joan will be all the happier when her trial is over, and the stronger.

She is bearing it bravely. I am proud of my girl."

The Squire lay for a long time silent. Then he said, "Well, we have thought it out together, my dear. I can face what must come now. We face it together. We live on quietly here, as we have always lived. I ask no one, from now, to stand and deliver. I do my duty amongst my neighbours, and those dependent on me, and they think of me what they please. You who know me, love and trust me, and that shall be enough.

We have our quiet home, and our children, and their children, and the friends who have stood by us. And we have our religion--our G.o.d, Who has helped us, and will help us. We have our burden too, but He will make it light for us. I feel at peace about it now, Nina--almost happy. I think I shall sleep to-night. Good night, Nina. G.o.d bless you. May G.o.d bless you, my dear wife!"

CHAPTER VIII

SKIES CLEARING

The Squire had slept late. Mrs. Clinton had stood by his bed when the breakfast gong had sounded, and looked down upon his face, older without a doubt than it had been a month before, more lined and furrowed, less firm of flesh, less ruddy of skin, but peaceful now, in its deep slumber. She had touched with her hand, lightly and tenderly, his grey head, and then gone downstairs to take the place which he had so seldom missed taking during all the years of their married life.

He got up at once when he awoke, shocked at finding himself so late.

The horses had gone back to the stables when he went into his dressing-room, but he stood for a moment or two looking out over the park, and then opened the window. Unconsciously he was taking stock of his surroundings once more, breathing in with the mild autumn air that sense both of s.p.a.ce and retirement which was the note of his much-loved home. It was his once more, to enjoy and to take pride in. Lately it had seemed not to be his at all.

Mrs. Clinton sat with him over his late breakfast. He had hardly begun it when d.i.c.k came in.

"Well, my boy," said the Squire cheerfully. "Sorry I couldn't see you last night. I was done up. I'm all right now, ready for anything.