Then it was that she found a man waiting for her and Philander Knox appeared.
“I knew your movements,” he said, “and I knew that you’d be setting out for the farm just about now, so I thought as I’d keep you company up the hill. For I always find, going up the Corkscrew, that it’s easier travelled in company.”
She was gratified.
“You’re a kind soul and I’m very glad, if you’ve got nothing better to do. My thoughts ain’t pleasant companions to-night, Mr. Knox.”
“They should be,” he answered, “for your thoughts can’t bully you, nor yet accuse you of things left undone, or done ill, like most of us have got to suffer from them. You can face your thoughts same as you can face your deeds, with a good conscience all the time.”
“Who can? I can’t. I’m cruel vexed now. That slip of a child, Daisy Finch, have been showing me that I may have been too hard on my own daughter. And yet—how can one feel too hard? ’Tisn’t as if I didn’t know Ned Dingle. But I do. He’s took this in a very Christian spirit—so far. I’d never have thought for a moment he’d have held in so well, or been such a gentleman over it. Some people might almost think he didn’t care and didn’t feel it; but he does—with all his heart he does. He couldn’t speak when I left him just now.”
“That’s true—he certainly does feel it properly. But it’s a very peculiar case, along of Kellock being the man he is. I haven’t got to the bottom of the thing yet. As a rule I’m not great on other people’s business, as you know, but in this case, along of my hopes where you’re concerned, Lydia, I take this to be a part of my business; and I’m going to get to the bottom of it by strategy and find out what made him take her away from Ned.”
“It don’t much matter now. The past is past and it won’t help us to know more than we know.”
“You can’t say that. You can read the future in the past if you’ve got understanding eyes. And I haven’t hid from you I’m far from hopeful about the future, because I can’t see them two suiting each other through a lifetime. They won’t.”
“So you said.”