Really, it was highly gratifying. It just showed that there was no need to hurry these things. If Joan had taken the first person that came along—a young fellow he had never thought much of himself, but had allowed to take his chances out of old friendship to his father—she would have missed this. The child was a good child. She would do credit to any station. Countess of Inverell! Nothing in that, of course, but—well, really the whole thing was highly gratifying.
Why hadn't his wife written about it?
There was nothing in that. She always left out of her letters the things she might have known he would like to hear. Virginia was quite certain; and she could be trusted on such a subject, or indeed on any.
Well, one got through one's troubles. It was extraordinary how sunshine came after rain, or would be if one didn't believe in a wise Providence overruling everything for our good. A few months ago there had been that terrible affair, now buried and forgotten——
The brightness left his face as his thoughts touched on that subject. It was buried, sadly, though perhaps mercifully, enough; but it was not forgotten. It was thought of as little as possible, but the debt still rankled—the debt that could not be paid. It came up at nights, when sleep tarried, which fortunately happened seldom. But time was adjusting the burden. It would not be felt much longer.
The thought of it now came only as a passing shadow to heighten the sunshine of the present. In fact this gleam of sunshine seemed to remove the shadow finally. He had done, all that he could do, had kept back nothing, had satisfied his honour. An obligation to so old a friend as Sedbergh need not weigh on any man.
It would be ungrateful not to recognise how plainly things had been "ordered." Apart from the curious accidents of the problem—the fact that "the woman" had not been condemned for that crime; that she had already paid her penalty; that the other woman had been connected in such a way that it had been possible to silence her by a perfectly innocent transaction, carried out by perfectly innocent people—facts surely beyond coincidence, and of themselves demanding belief in an overruling Providence—apart from all this there had been poor Susan's death, no longer demanding the least pretence of lamentation, but to be regarded as a clear sign that the account had been squared and no further penalty would be exacted.
And now there was this new satisfaction, as a further most bountiful token of favour. How was it possible that there could be those who did not believe in a God above, when signs were so plain to those who could read them? It would be churlish now not to throw off all disagreeable thoughts of the past, and not to take full pleasure in the brightness of present and future.
As the Squire came round a group of shrubs that masked the lawn from the carriage drive he saw a woman approaching the house. As he caught sight of her she caught sight of him, changed her course, and came towards him.
He stopped short with a gasp of dismay. It was Mrs. Amberley.