The Quality of Mercy Part 20

"We've never used it for any one, yet," Suzette continued, "and we can move back into the house in the winter."

This again seemed to Louise an admirable notion, and she parted from her friend in more comfort than she could have imagined when they met. She carried her feeling of elation home with her, and was able to report Sue in a state of almost smiling prosperity, and of perfect resignation, if not acquiescence, in whatever the company should make Hilary do. She figured her father, in his reluctance, as a sort of ally of the Northwicks, and she was disappointed that he seemed to derive so little pleasure from Sue's approval. But he generally approved of all that she could remember to have said for him to the Northwicks, though he did not show himself so appreciative of the situation as Matt. She told her brother what Sue had said when she heard of his unwillingness to intrude upon her, and she added that now he must certainly go to see her.

XXII.

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_."