Matt felt that he need now no longer practise those reserves in speaking
to Sue of her father, which he had observed so painfully hitherto.
Neither did she shrink from the fact they had to deal with. In the trust
established between them, they spoke of it all openly, and if there was
any difference in them concerning it, the difference was in his greater
forbearance toward the unhappy man. They both spoke of his wrong-doing
as if it were his infirmity; they could not do otherwise; and they both
insensibly assumed his irresponsibility in a measure; they dwelt in the
fiction or the persuasion of a mental obliquity which would account for
otherwise unaccountable things.
"It is what my sister has always said," Sue eagerly assented to his
suggestion of this theory. "I suppose it's what I've always believed,
too, somehow, or I couldn't have lived."
"Yes; yes, it _must_ be so," Matt insisted. "But now the question is how
to reach him, and make some beginning of the end with him. I suppose
it's the suspense and the uncertainty that is breaking your sister
down?"
"Yes--that and what we ought to do about giving up the property.
We--quarrelled about that at first; we couldn't see it alike; but now
I've yielded; we've both yielded; and we don't know what to do."
"We must talk all that over with your lawyer, in connection with
something I've just heard of." He told her of Pinney's scheme, and he
said, "We must see if we can't turn it to account."
They agreed not to talk of her father with Adeline, but she began it
herself. She looked very old and frail, as she sat nervously rocking
herself in a corner of the cottage parlor, and her voice had a sharp,
anxious note. "What I think is, that now we know father is alive, we
oughtn't to do anything about the property without hearing from him. It
stands to reason, don't you think it does, Mr. Hilary, that he would
know better than anybody else, what we ought to do. Any rate, I think we
ought to wait and consult with him about it, and see what he says. The
property belonged to mother in the first place, and he mightn't like to
have us part with it."
"I don't think you need trouble about that, now, Miss Northwick," said
Matt. "Nothing need be done about the property at present."
"But I keep thinking about it. I want to do what Sue thinks is right,
and to see it just in the light she does; and I've told her I would do
exactly as she said about it; but now she won't say; and so I think
we've got to wait and hear from father. Don't you?"
"Decidedly, I think you ought to do nothing now, till you hear from
him," said Matt.
"I knew you would," said the old maid, "and if Sue will be ruled by me,
she'll see that it will all turn out right. I know father, and I know
he'll want to do what is sensible, and at the same time honorable. He is
a person who could never bear to wrong any one out of a cent."
"Well," said Sue, "we will do what Mr. Hilary says; and now, try not to
worry about it any more," she coaxed.
"Oh, yes! It's well enough to say not to worry _now_, when my mind's got
going on it," said the old maid, querulously; she flung her weak frame
against the chair-back, and she began to wipe the gathering tears. "But
if you'd agreed with me in the first place, it wouldn't have come to
this. Now I'm all broken down, and I don't know _when_ I shall be well
again."
It was a painful moment; Sue patiently adjusted the cushion to her
sister's shoulders, while Adeline's tongue ran helplessly on. "You were
so headstrong and stubborn, I thought you would kill me. You were just
like a rock, and I could beat myself to pieces against you, and you
wouldn't move."
"I was wrong," said the proud girl, meekly.
"I'm sure," Adeline whimpered, "I hate to make an exhibition before Mr.
Hilary, as much as any one, but I can't help it; no, I can't. My nerves
are _all_ gone."
The doctor came, and Sue followed Matt out of doors, to leave her, for
the first few confidential moments, sacred to the flow of symptoms,
alone with the physician. There was a little sequestered space among the
avenue firs beside the lodge, with a bench, toward which he led the way,
but the girl would not sit down. She stood with her arms fallen at her
side, and looked him steadily in the face.
"It's all true that she said of me. I set myself like a rock against
her. I have made her sick, and if she died, I should be her murderer!"
He put his arms round her, and folded her to his heart. "Oh, my love, my
love, my love!" he lamented and exulted over her.
She did not try to resist; she let her arms hang at her side; she said,
"Is _this_ the way we keep our word?--Already!"
"Our word was made to be broken; we must have meant it so. I'm glad we
could break it so soon. Now I can truly help you; now that you are to be
my wife."
She did not gainsay him, but she asked, "What will you think when you
know--you must have known that I used to care for some else; but he
never cared for me? It ought to make you despise me; it made me despise
myself! But it is true. I did care all the world for him, once. _Now_
will you say--"
"Now, more than ever," said the young man, silencing her lips with his
own, and in their trance of love the world seemed to reel away from
under their feet, with all its sorrows and shames, and leave them in
mid-heaven.
"Suzette!" Adeline's voice called from within. "Suzette! Where are you?"
Sue released herself, and ran into the cottage. She came out again in a
little while, and said that the doctor thought Adeline had better go to
bed for a day or two and have a thorough rest, and relief from all
excitement. "We mustn't talk before her any more, and you mustn't stay
any longer."
He accepted the authority she instinctively assumed over him, and found
his dismissal already of the order of things. He said, "Yes, I'll go at
once. But about--"
She put a card into his hand. "You can see Mr. Putney, and whatever you
and he think best, will _be_ best. Haven't you been our good angel ever
since--Oh, I'm not half good enough for you, and I shouldn't be, even if
there were no stain--"
"Stop!" he said; he caught her hand, and pulled her toward him.
The doctor came out, and said in a low voice, "There's nothing to be
anxious about, but she really must have quiet. I'll send Mrs. Morrell
down to see you, after tea. She's quiet itself."
Suzette submitted, and let Matt take her hand again in parting.
"Will you give me a lift, doctor, if you're going toward town?"
"Get in," said the doctor.
Sue went indoors, and the two men drove off together.
Matt looked at the card in his hand, and read: "Mr. Putney: Please talk
to Mr. Hilary as you would to my sister or me." Suzette's printed name
served for signature. Matt put the card in his pocket-book, and then he
said, "What sort of man is Mr. Putney, doctor?"
"Mr. Putney," said the doctor, with a twinkle of his blue eyes, "is one
of those uncommon people who have enemies. He has a good many because
he's a man that thinks, and then says what he thinks. But he's his own
worst enemy, because from time to time he gets drunk."
"A character," said Matt. "Do you think he's a safe one? Doesn't his
getting drunk from time to time interfere with his usefulness?"
"Well, of course," said the doctor. "It's bad for him; but I think it's
slowly getting better. Yes, decidedly. It's very extraordinary, but ever
since he's been in charge of the Miss Northwicks' interests--"
"Yes; _that's_ what I was thinking of."
"He's kept perfectly straight. It's as if the responsibilities had
steadied him."
"But if he goes on sprees, he may be on the verge of one that's
gathering violence from its postponement," Matt suggested.
"I think not," said the doctor after a moment. "But of course I can't
tell."
"They trust him so implicitly," said Matt.
"I know," said the doctor. "And I know that he's entirely devoted to
them. The fact is, Putney's a very dear friend of mine."
"Oh, excuse me--"
"No, no!" The doctor stayed Matt's apologies. "I understand just what
you mean. He disliked their father very much. He was principled against
him as a merely rich man, with mischievous influence on the imaginations
of all the poor people about him who wanted to be like him--"
"Oh, that's rather good," said Matt.
"Do you think so?" asked the doctor, looking round at him. "Well! I
supposed you would be all the other way. Well! What I was saying was
that Putney looks upon these poor girls as their father's chief victims.
I think he was touched by their coming to him, and has pitied them. The
impression is that he's managed their affairs very well; I don't know
about such things; but I know he's managed them honorably; I would stake
my life on it; and I believe he'll hold out straight to the last. I
suppose," the doctor conjectured, at the end, "that they will try to get
at Northwick now, and arrange with his creditors for his return."
"I don't mind telling you," said Matt, "that it's been tried and failed.
The State's attorney insists that he shall come back and stand his
trial, first of all."
"Oh!" said the doctor.
"Of course, that's right from the legal point of view. But in the
meantime, nobody knows where Mr. Northwick is."
"I suppose," said the doctor, "it would have been better for him not to
have written that letter."
"It's hard to say," Matt answered. "I thought so, too, at first. I
thought it was cowardly and selfish of him to take away his children's
superstition about his honesty. You knew that they held to that through
all?"
"Most touching thing in the world," said the doctor, leaning forward to
push a fly off his horse with the limp point of his whip. "That poor old
maid has talked it into me till I almost believed it myself."
"I don't know that I should hold him severely accountable. And I'm not
sure now that I should condemn him for writing that letter. It must have
been a great relief to him. In a way, you may say he _had_ to do it.
It's conceivable that if he had kept it on his mind any longer, his mind
would have given way. As it is, they have now the comfort of another
superstition--if it is a superstition. What do you think, doctor? Do you
believe that there was a mental twist in him?"
"There seems to be in nearly all these defaulters. What they do is so
senseless--so insane. I suppose that's the true theory of all crime. But
it won't do to act upon it, yet awhile."
"No."
The doctor went on after a pause, with a laugh of enjoyment at the
notion. "Above all, it won't do to let the defaulters act upon that
theory, and apply for admission to the insane asylums instead of taking
the express for Canada, when they're found out."
"Oh, no," said Matt. He wondered at himself for being able to analyze
the offence of Suzette's father so cold-bloodedly. But in fact he could
not relate the thought of her to the thought of him in his sin, at all;
he could only realize their kindred in her share of his suffering.