“Oh, Mr. Meadows! don't flatter me; tell me the truth.” While he was exulting in her firmness, who demanded the truth, bitter or not, she continued: “Only don't tell me that I am forgotten!” And she looked so piteously in the oracle's face that he forgot everything in the desire to say something she would like him the better for saying; he muttered, “Perhaps he has sailed for home.” He expected her to say, “And if he has he would have written to me before sailing.” But instead of this Susan gave a little cry of joy.
“Ah! how foolish I have been. Mr. Meadows, you are a friend out of a thousand; you are as wise as I am foolish. Poor George! you will never let him know I was so wicked as to doubt him.” And Susan brightened with joy and hope. The heart believes so readily the thing it longs should be true. She was happy all the rest of the evening.
Meadows went away mad with her for her folly, and with himself for his feebleness of purpose, and next market-day again the whisper went round the market that George Fielding was going to marry out there. This time a detail was sketched in: “It was a lady in the town of Bathurst.” Old Merton brought this home and twitted his daughter. She answered haughtily that it was a falsehood. She would stake her life on George's fidelity.
“See, Mr. Meadows, they are all against poor George, all except you. But what does it mean? if he does not write or come soon I think I shall go mad.”
“Report is a common liar; I would not believe anything till I saw it in black and white,” said Meadows, doggedly.
“No more I will.”
Soon after this William Fielding had a talk with Susan.
“Have you heard a report about George?”
“Yes! I have heard a rumor.”
“You don't believe it, I hope.”