"Do you think she will stick to that? No, she will try to blacken us in every way she can. She'll tell lies about us. It's no good saying people won't believe them. They will believe them, if we don't defend ourselves. We may have to have her up for slander, after all."
"What can she get out of it all?" asked Virginia in a voice of pain. "It will be horrible. Every right-thinking person must abhor her."
"She will have a right to try and clear herself," said Mrs. Clinton. "It is true that she was accused of doing what Susan really did, and the accusation has never been cleared up."
"That is true," said Dick, "and if she confines herself to truth, we have no right to try and stop her. Under all the circumstances—her trying to get money for her silence, and so on—I don't see that we are under the smallest obligation—of honour or anything else—to help her. If we come out into the open we shan't be able to keep Susan's guilt dark. That's why I think she will drag us into attacking her. We shall see what Herbert Birkett says. All we have to do in the meantime is to live on quietly here as usual, and wait for what comes."
"There are the others to be thought of," said Mrs. Clinton. "Jim and Cicely, Walter and Muriel, Frank, all of them. They must be prepared."
"Yes," said Dick unwillingly. "They are bound to hear of it. We must tell them. Get them down here as soon as possible. I will go over and tell Jim and Cicely to-morrow."
The Squire had been sitting in a blessed state of quiescence. He had done his part. Dick had a clearer head than he. In his bruised state, he was only too ready to let Dick take the lead in whatever had to be done.
"There is my poor little Joan to think of," he said. "Young Inverell—I have put him off. Joan must be told why."
"I will tell her," Mrs. Clinton said. "Poor child, it is hardest for her, just now. But he will not give her up—I am sure of it."
"I don't know," said the Squire. "If the whole country is going to ring with our name—— His stands high. But I won't have him here until the worst has happened that can happen; and then only if he comes of his own accord. We stand on what honour is left to us. It won't be much. We've been talking as if we could all clear ourselves at Susan's expense, if everything comes out. We can't. She was one of us, poor girl. We suffer for her sins."