‘I doubt,’ said Rachael, ‘if he can be here till next day.’
‘Then I will come next night too,’ said Sissy.
When Rachael, assenting to this, was gone, Mr. Gradgrind lifted up his head, and said to his daughter:
‘Louisa, my dear, I have never, that I know of, seen this man. Do you believe him to be implicated?’
‘I think I have believed it, father, though with great difficulty. I do not believe it now.’
‘That is to say, you once persuaded yourself to believe it, from knowing him to be suspected. His appearance and manner; are they so honest?’
‘Very honest.’
‘And her confidence not to be shaken! I ask myself,’ said Mr. Gradgrind, musing, ‘does the real culprit know of these accusations? Where is he? Who is he?’
His hair had latterly began to change its colour. As he leaned upon his hand again, looking gray and old, Louisa, with a face of fear and pity, hurriedly went over to him, and sat close at his side. Her eyes by accident met Sissy’s at the moment. Sissy flushed and started, and Louisa put her finger on her lip.
Next night, when Sissy returned home and told Louisa that Stephen was not come, she told it in a whisper. Next night again, when she came home with the same account, and added that he had not been heard of, she spoke in the same low frightened tone. From the moment of that interchange of looks, they never uttered his name, or any reference to him, aloud; nor ever pursued the subject of the robbery, when Mr. Gradgrind spoke of it.