"I have told Joan everything," said Mrs. Clinton, "and she sees it as we do. She is content to wait."
"Read that," said the Squire, taking the fateful letter from his pocket. "That is what we have to face. I didn't see my way to deny it, so I left his Lordship to attend to the affairs of the nation."
"But it isn't true!" said Dick, when he had read it. "It looks like the truth, but it isn't. You could have denied every word of it, except the first statement—about Susan."
The Squire looked at his wife with a smile. "Dick sees it at once," he said. "It took you and me half the night to get at it, Nina; and I should never have got at it by myself. Well, it isn't true, Dick, as far as it puts blame on me which I don't deserve. But it's true about Susan. I couldn't tell him the story; so I came away."
"And he will tell Inverell that he showed you this letter and you could make no reply to it."
"Yes, I suppose so."
Dick looked deeply disturbed. "I wish I had been there," he said.
"If you had been there, Dick," said Mrs. Clinton, "I think you would have done just the same as your father did. Have you ever faced the necessity of bringing the charge against Susan with your own lips? I don't think you could do it, if it came to the point."
Dick rose and went to the window. "We could not deny it if they brought us to the point," he said. "No; but that is different."
He thought for a moment, swinging the tassel of the blind. "It seems to me," he said, "to have come to the point where Humphrey ought to speak—ought to be sent for. We can't do it. No; perhaps you are right; until we are pushed to a point where we shall have to do it. But he could; and it ought to be done. Why should father be made to suffer these indignities? Why should poor little Joan lose her happiness in this way? I'm not sure that it isn't our duty to speak out, even now, however much we should dislike having to."