"Exactly what you did, Edward dear. I am not sure that I should even have had the strength to refuse Humphrey's plea, as you so honourably did, without counting the cost in any way. You were ready to take any consequences, to yourself. Oh, you could not have done more."
"But then, why am I put in the wrong? Those are the charges against me. Those, and that I offered Sedbergh the price of the necklace—which he refused. Yes, he did refuse it, and made me feel, too, that I ought not to have asked him to accept it. Why did I feel that? It isn't that he was wrong. He was right, and I should have acted as he did if I had been in his place. But why did I feel ashamed of having offered it to him? What was the alternative? To say nothing about it to him, when Susan had spent thousands of pounds belonging to him, and I knew of it? Can anyone seriously say that that was a more honourable course to take than the one I did take? Nina, help me. Tell me where I was wrong. I must have been wrong there, because I felt ashamed."
"It is easy enough now to mark down little errors. In the main, Edward dear, you were right all through—nobly right."
"Little errors! What error was there there? I either offered him the money, or kept from him the fact that a member of my family had spent it. There was no alternative. Was there? Do tell me, Nina, if you can see anything that I can't see."
"I think the better way would have been to tell Lord Sedbergh of what had been done, and leave it to him to take steps if he wished to. He would have taken none. You would have been justified. You could not justify yourself any more by paying him back what had been stolen."
"Yes, that is what he said. He would not bear my burden. Why should he have? Yes. I see that, Nina. I was wrong there. I think I was very wrong there."
Oh, how it rent her heart to hear him, who had been so ready with his dictatorial censure of all dependent on him, so impervious to every shaft of censure that might have been attracted to himself, thus baring his breast to blame, accepting it, welcoming it, if it would only help to clear away his bewilderment.
"It came to the same thing, dear, in the end," she reminded him. "You had told Lord Sedbergh."
"Ah, but it wasn't quite the same. I can see that now. If I had gone to him as you said, I could have denied the statement that I kept silence. I should have told the one man that perhaps it was right that I should have told. I am beginning to see a little light, Nina. Nothing more could have been expected of me than that. I should have had a complete answer. Oh, why did I make that mistake? It looked to me, afterwards, such a small one. Sedbergh set me right over it—snubbed me really, though in the kindest possible way—and I deserved it. But that didn't end it. That mistake put everything else wrong. I am beginning to see it. But, oh, how difficult it all is!"
"Edward, you had told Lord Sedbergh. You told him before you made any suggestion as to payment. He had thought the matter was ended when he had said you were right to tell him, and there was nothing more to be done. You have told me that whenever you have gone over the conversation you had with him."