"Don't ask me to believe in a God in heaven, if things go badly with Caspar," said Miss Brooke, curtly. "Haven't I lived ten years in the house with the man, and don't I know that he would not hurt a fly? He's the gentlest soul alive, although he looks so big and strong: the gentlest, softest-hearted, most generous——But I suppose it is no good saying all that to your mother's daughter?"—and Miss Brooke picked up a paper-covered volume that had fallen to her feet, and began to read.
"I am my father's daughter too," said Lesley, with rather tremulous dignity, as she turned away. She was too indignant with Miss Brooke to wish her good-night, and meant to leave the room without another word. But Miss Brooke, dropping her book on her red flannel lap, and looking uneasily over her shoulder at her niece's retreating figure, would not let her go.
"Come, Lesley, don't be angry," she said. "I am so upset that I hardly know what I am saying. Come here and kiss me, child, I did not mean to vex you."
And Lesley came back and kissed her aunt, but in silence, for her heart was sore within her. Was it perhaps true—or partially true—that she had been the cause of the misery that had come upon them all? Indirectly and partially, unintentionally and without consciousness of wrong-doing—and yet she could not altogether acquit herself of blame. Had she been more reserved, more guarded in her behavior, Oliver Trent would never have fallen in love with her. Would this have mended matters? If, as she gathered, the sole reason of her father's visit to the Trents had been to assure himself of the true nature of her relations with Oliver—her cheeks burned as she put the matter in that light, even to herself—why, then, she could not possibly divest herself of responsibility. Of course she could not for one moment imagine that her father had lifted his hand against Oliver; but his visit to the house shortly before the murder gave a certain air of plausibility to the tale: and for this Lesley felt herself to blame.
She went to her own room and lay down, but she could not sleep. There was a hidden joy at the bottom of her heart—a joy of which she was half ashamed. The relief of finding that Maurice was still her friend—it was so that she phrased it to herself—was indeed very great. And there was a strange and beautiful hope for the future, which she dared not look at yet. For it seemed to her as if it would be a sort of treason to dream of love and joy and hope for herself when those that she loved best—and she herself also—were involved in one common downfall, one common misfortune of so terrible a kind. The thought of her father—detained, she knew not where: she had a childish vision of a felon's cell, very different indeed from the reality of the plain but fairly comfortable room with which Mr. Caspar Brooke had been
accommodated, and she shuddered at the thought of the days before him, of the public examinations, of the doubt and shame and mystery in which poor Oliver Trent's death was enwrapped. She thought of Ethel, now under the influence of a strong narcotic, from which she would not awake until the morning; and she shrank in imagination from that awakening to despair. And she thought of others who were more or less concerned in the tragedy; of Mary Kingston—though she could not remember her without a shudder—of Mrs. Romaine, who had loved her brother so tenderly; and of Lady Alice, the woman whose husband was in prison for a crime of which Lesley was willing to swear that he was innocent.
When her thoughts once reached her mother, they stayed and would not be diverted. She could not sleep: she could think of nothing but the mother and the father whom she loved. And she wept over the failure of her schemes for their reunion. All hope of that was at an end. It was impossible that Lady Alice should not believe him guilty. She had always judged him harshly, and taken the worst possible view of his behavior. Lesley remembered that she had not—in common parlance—"had a good word to say for him," when she spoke of him in the convent parlor. What would she say now, and how could Lesley make her see the truth?
The fruit of her reflections became evident at breakfast-time next morning. Lesley came downstairs with her hat on and a mantle over her arm.
"Where are you going?" Miss Brooke asked. "Not to poor Ethel, I hope? I am very sorry for her, but really, Lesley——"
"I am going to mamma," said Lesley.