Part 28 (1/2)
”I don't think so. You are rich enough to be able to replace an heirloom--it was an heirloom, wasn't it?--and make up to your wife what has been lost, without occasioning remark. Oh, you must take the money, Jim. You're as generous as any man living--I know that. But the loss cannot fall on you, now it is known where the money went to.
That poor misguided creature had it and spent it. It would be a burden on me all my life, if I couldn't put that right--and on Humphrey too.
He would feel it as much as I should.”
”I'm afraid you can't put it right,” said Lord Sedbergh, speaking more seriously. ”And it's a burden that you and Humphrey will have to shoulder. I'll do everything I can for you, Edward; but I won't carry that burden.”
”What do you mean?” asked the Squire.
Lord Sedbergh did not speak for a moment. Then he looked up and asked, ”What about Mrs. Amberley?”
The Squire frowned deeply. The question was a surprise to him. He had not thought much about Mrs. Amberley, except as an example of what Susan might be made to appear before the world.
”I ought to have told you how I regard that,” he said unwillingly. ”I didn't, because it seems to me perfectly plain, and I thought you would see it in the same light as I do.”
Lord Sedbergh waited for him to explain the light in which he saw it.
”She isn't in prison any longer. They let her out, because she was ill--or so they said. She's as free as you or I. Nothing that could be done--somebody else suffering in the same way--would wipe out what she has already undergone--and done with. Besides, it wasn't on account of the necklace that she was sent to prison. It was on account of the other thing; and that she did steal.”
”Yes, that's perfectly true. She has had no more than her deserts--rather less in fact. No, you couldn't reinstate her by publis.h.i.+ng the truth.”
”Well, then, what's the difficulty?”
”There's no difficulty, Edward, in my mind, about keeping quiet. It would be too much to expect any man in your situation to bring the heaviest possible misfortune on himself, and others, for the sake of doing justice to someone who could hardly benefit by it. At least that's how it seems to me.”
”Justice!” echoed the Squire. ”There's no question of justice. She was punished for something quite different. If she had been found guilty of stealing the necklace, and were still undergoing punishment for it, the whole question would be different altogether. Thank G.o.d, we haven't got to face that question. It would be terrible. As it has so mercifully turned out, no injustice is done to her at all. Can't you see that?”
”Well, do you think _she_ would, if she were asked?”
Lord Sedbergh did not leave time for his question to sink in. ”My dear fellow,” he went on, ”your course is as difficult as it could be. Who am I that I should put my finger on any one of its difficulties, and make it heavier? You have done nothing that I shouldn't have done myself if I had been in your place. At the same time, you have to take the responsibility for whatever you do, and I haven't.”
”Yes, I know that; and it's just what I want to do--put things right wherever I can.”
”But you wouldn't be putting anything right by paying me money. You would only be making me share your difficulties--your great and very disagreeable difficulties; and that, with all the good will in the world towards you, my dear Edward, I won't do.”
The Squire saw it dimly, and what he saw did not please him. Nor was his light enough to prevent him from pressing his point.
When Lord Sedbergh had combated it for some time, with firm good humour, he said more seriously, ”Can't you see that if this story were ever to come out, and I had taken your money, I should be in a very awkward position?”
”It never will come out now.”
”That's your risk, Edward. I may be a monster of selfishness, but I won't make it mine.”
When the Squire left the club half-an-hour later, his face was not that of a man who had been set free of a debt of seven thousand pounds.
CHAPTER IV
THIS OUR SISTER