"It's true," said the Squire. "I wish I'd had you to show it all so clearly to me while I was going through that awful time, making up my mind. Oh, Lord!" He wiped his brow, damp with the horror of thinking of it.
"You made up your mind without seeing clearly," said Mrs. Clinton. "You did what was right because it was right."
"And now we've got to take our punishment for it," said the poor Squire, with a wry smile.
"That is what we'd better talk about," said Dick. "The other is all over. We can talk about that later."
"Herbert Birkett is coming down to-morrow," said the Squire. "I wrote and told him he must, and he sent me a wire. He is playing golf at North Berwick. It is her threat of an action for conspiracy that I want to ask him about."
"That's bluff," said Dick. "Who conspired to do what? Humphrey is out of the country. He had better stay there. She can't get at him. Everybody else is blameless. You refused, and you were the only one besides him who knew anything about it."
"I can't prove that, and she won't stick at lies."
"That's true enough. But you can prove it. She will have to get the Gotches over to prove anything at all, and his evidence will clear you. Besides, you refused her the second time."
"I can't prove that. There were only she and I."
"By Jove!" Dick felt in his breast pocket. "She's given herself away there. I've got a letter from her. She says you refused. She isn't as clever as I thought she was."