A day or two later, when Matt Hilary went to Hatboro', he found Wade in
his study at the church, and he lost no time in asking him, "Wade, what
do you know of the Miss Northwicks? Have you seen them lately?"
Wade told him how little he had seen Miss Northwick, and how he had not
seen Suzette at all. Then Matt said, "I don't know why I asked you,
because I knew all this from Louise; she was up here the other day, and
they told her. What I am really trying to get at is, whether you know
anything more about how that affair with Jack Wilmington stands. Do you
know whether he has tried to see her since the trouble about her father
came out?"
Adeline Northwick had dropped from the question, as usual, and it really
related so wholly to Suzette in the thoughts of both the young men, that
neither of them found it necessary to limit it explicitly.
"I feel quite sure he hasn't," said Wade, "though I can't answer
positively."
"Then that settles it!" Matt walked away to one of Wade's gothic
windows, and looked out. When he turned and came back to his friend, he
said, "If he had ever been in earnest about her, I think he would have
tried to see her at such a time, don't you?"
"I can't imagine his not doing it. I never thought him a cad."
"No, nor I."
"He would have done it unless--unless that woman has some hold that
gives her command of him. He's shown great weakness, to say the least.
But I don't believe there's anything worse. What do the village people
believe?"
"All sorts of lurid things, some of them; others believe that the affair
is neither more nor less than it appears to be. It's a thing that could
be just what it is in no other country in the world. It's the phase that
our civilization has contributed to the physiognomy of scandal, just as
the exile of the defaulter is the phase we have contributed to the
physiognomy of crime. Public opinion here isn't severe upon Mrs.
Wilmington or Mr. Northwick."
"I'm not prepared to quarrel with it on that account," said Matt, with
the philosophical serenity which might easily be mistaken for irony in
him. "The book we get our religion from teaches leniency in the judgment
of others."
"It doesn't teach cynical indifference," Wade suggested.
"Perhaps that isn't what people feel," said Matt.
"I don't know. Sometimes I dread to think how deeply our demoralization
goes in certain directions."
Matt did not follow the lure to that sort of speculative inquiry he and
Wade were fond of. He said, with an abrupt return to the personal
ground: "Then you don't think Jack Wilmington need be any further
considered in regard to her?"
"In regard to Miss Sue Northwick? I don't know whether I quite
understand what you mean."
"I mean, is it anybody's duty--yours or mine--to go to the man and find
him out; what he really thinks, what he really feels? I don't mean, make
an appeal to him. That would be unworthy of her. But perhaps he's
holding back from a mistaken feeling of delicacy, of remorse; when if he
could be made to see that it was his right, his privilege, to be
everything to her now that a man could be to a woman, and infinitely
more than any man could hope to be to a happy or fortunate woman--What
do you think? He could be reparation, protection, safety, everything!"
Wade shook his head. "It would be useless. Wilmington knows very well
that such a girl would never let him be anything to her now when he had
slighted her fancy for him before. Even if he were ever in love with
her, which I doubt, he couldn't do it."
"No, I suppose not," said Matt. After a little pause, he added, "Then I
must go myself."
"Go, yourself? What do you mean?" Wade asked.
"Some one must try to make them understand just how they are situated. I
don't think Louise did; I don't think she knew herself, how the legal
proceedings would affect them; and I think I'd better go and make it
perfectly clear."
"I can imagine it won't be pleasant," said Wade.
"No," said Matt, "I don't expect that. But I inferred, from what she
said to Louise, that she would be willing to see me, and I think I had
better go."
He put his conviction interrogatively, and Wade said heartily, "Why, of
course. It's the only thing," and Matt went away with a face which was
cheerful with good-will, if not the hope of pleasure.
He met Suzette in the avenue, dressed for walking, and coming forward
with the magnificent, haughty movement she had. As she caught sight of
him, she started, and then almost ran toward him. "Oh! _You_!" she said,
and she shrank back a little, and then put her hand impetuously out to
him.
He took it in his two, and bubbled out, "Are you walking somewhere? Are
you well? Is your sister at home? Don't let me keep you! May I walk with
you?"
Her smile clouded. "I'm only walking here in the avenue. How is Louise?
Did she get home safely? It was good of her to come here. It isn't the
place for a gay visit."
"Oh, Miss Northwick! It was good of you to see her. And we were very
happy--relieved--to find that you didn't feel aggrieved with any of _us_
for what must happen. And I hope you don't feel that I've taken an
advantage of your kindness in coming?"
"Oh, no!"
"I've just been to see Wade." Matt reddened consciously. "But it doesn't
seem quite fair to have met you where you had no choice but to receive
me!"
"I walk here every morning," she returned, evasively. "I have nowhere
else. I never go out of the avenue. Adeline goes to the village,
sometimes. But I can't meet people."
"I know," said Matt, with caressing sympathy; and his head swam in the
sudden desire to take her in his arms, and shelter her from that shame
and sorrow preying upon her. Her eyes had a trouble in them that made
him ache with pity; he recognized, as he had not before, that they were
the translation in feminine terms, of her father's eyes. "Poor Wade," he
went on, without well knowing what he was saying, "told me that he--he
was very sorry he had not been able to see you--to do anything--"
"What would have been the use? No one can do anything. We must bear our
burden; but we needn't add to it by seeing people who believe that--that
my father did wrong."
Matt's breath almost left him. He perceived that the condition on which
she was bearing her sorrow was the refusal of her shame. Perhaps it
could not have been possible for one of her nature to accept it, and it
required no effort in her to frame the theory of her father's innocence;
perhaps no other hypothesis was possible to her, and evidence had
nothing to do with the truth as she felt it.
"The greatest comfort we have is that none of _you_ believe it; and your
father knew my father better than any one else. I was afraid I didn't
make Louise understand how much I felt that, and how much Adeline did.
It was hard to tell her, without seeming to thank you for something that
was no more than my father's due. But we do feel it, both of us; and I
would like your father to know it. I don't blame him for what he is
going to do. It's necessary to establish my father's innocence to have
the trial. I was very unjust to your father that first day, when I
thought he believed those things against papa. We appreciate his
kindness in every way, but we shall not get any lawyer to defend us."
Matt was helplessly silent before this wild confusion of perfect trust
and hopeless error. He would not have known where to begin to set her
right; he did not see how he could speak a word without wounding her
through her love, her pride.
She hurried on, walking swiftly, as if to keep up with the rush of her
freed emotions. "We are not afraid but that it will come out so that our
father's name, who was always so perfectly upright, and so good to every
one, will be cleared, and those who have accused him so basely will be
punished as they deserve."
She had so wholly misconceived the situation and the character of the
impending proceedings that it would not have been possible to explain it
all to her; but he could not leave her in her error, and he made at last
an effort to enlighten her.
"I think my father was right in advising you to see a lawyer. It won't
be a question of the charges against your father's integrity, but of his
solvency. The proceedings will be against his estate; and you mustn't
allow yourselves to be taken at a disadvantage."
She stopped. "What do we care for the estate, if his good name isn't
cleared up?"
"I'm afraid--I'm afraid," Matt entreated, "that you don't exactly
understand."
"If my father never meant to keep the money, then the trial will show,"
the girl returned.
"But a lawyer--indeed you ought to see a lawyer!--could explain how such
a trial would leave that question where it was. It wouldn't be the case
against your father, but against _you_."
"Against us? What do they say we have done?"
Matt could have laughed at her heroic misapprehension of the affair, if
it had not been for the pity of it. "Nothing! Nothing! But they can take
everything here that belonged to your father--everything on the place,
to satisfy his creditors. The question of his wrong-doing won't enter. I
can't tell you how. But you ought to have a lawyer who would defend your
rights in the case."
"If they don't pretend we've done anything then they can't do anything
to us!"
"They can take everything your father had in the world to pay his
debts."
"Then let them take it," said the girl. "If he had lived he would have
paid them. We will never admit that he did anything for us to be ashamed
of; that he ever wilfully wronged any one."
Matt could see that the profession of her father's innocence was
essential to her. He could not know how much of it was voluntary, a pure
effect of will, in fulfilment of the demands of her pride, and how much
was real belief. He only knew that, whatever it was, his wish was not to
wound her or to molest her in it, but to leave what should be sacred
from human touch to the mystery that we call providence. It might have
been this very anxiety that betrayed him, for a glance at his face
seemed to stay her.
"Don't you think I am right, Mr. Hilary?"
"Yes, yes!" Matt began; and he was going to say that she was right in
every way, but he found that his own truth was sacred to him as well as
her fiction, and he said, "I've no right to judge your father. It's the
last thing I should be willing to do. I certainly don't believe he ever
wished to wrong any one if he could have helped it."
"Thank you!" said the girl. "That was not what I asked you. I _know_
what my father meant to do, and I didn't need any reassurance. I'm sorry
to have troubled you with all these irrelevant questions; and I thank
you very much for the kind advice you have given me."
"Oh, don't take it so!" he entreated, simply. "I do wish to be of use to
you--all the use that the best friend in the world can be; and I see
that I have wounded you. Don't take my words amiss; I'm sure you
couldn't take my will so, if you knew it! If the worst that anybody has
said about your father were ten times true, it couldn't change my will,
or--"
"Thank you! Thank you!" she said perversely. "I don't think we
understand each other, Mr. Hilary. It's scarcely worth while to try. I
think I must say good-by. My sister will be expecting me." She nodded,
and he stood aside, lifting his hat. She dashed by him, and he remained
staring after her till she vanished in the curve of the avenue. She
suddenly reappeared, and came quickly back toward him. "I wanted to say
that, no matter what you think or say, I shall never forget what you
have done, and I shall always be grateful for it." She launched these
words fiercely at him, as if they were a form of defiance, and then
whirled away, and was quickly lost to sight again.