Part 40 (1/2)

”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.”