"I think that is the way things will work," he said. "She will be repulsed by decent people, and she will come to see that whatever mud she stirs up, more than half of it will stick to her. If she marries Colne—or even if she only clings on to him as her champion—he'll come to see, if he has any sense, that the less she talks the better."
"He would want to see her cleared," said the Rector.
"Yes, and that's our difficulty. Sedbergh is very good; but I don't like it, all the same."
"Don't like what?" asked the Squire.
"I wish to God we could come out into the open." He spoke with strong impatience. "She's in the wrong. Yes. Scandalously in the wrong—a blackmailer, everything you like to say of her. But she's also in the right, and that's just where she can hurt us—where she is hurting us."
"Has anything happened?" asked the Squire anxiously.
"Yes. It's reached us at last. It's creeping like a blight all over the country—above ground, underground. It will crop up where you never could have expected. And what satisfactory answer can we give, without telling the truth, and the whole truth?"
"Tell us what has happened," said the Squire.
"I went into Bathgate, to Brooks, the saddler. I always have a talk with the old man, if he's in the shop; and he was there alone. He hummed and ha'd a lot, and said there was a story going about that he thought I ought to know of. And what do you think the story was? Humphrey stole the necklace and gave it to Mrs. Amberley. Susan found it out and it killed her. You gave Humphrey money on condition he never showed his face in England again. That's the sort of thing we are up against."
The Squire's face was a sight to see. The Rector relieved the tension by laughing, but not very merrily.