Jem's face became very red at the allusion he made to Mary, but his honest, fearless eyes had met Mr. Carson's penetrating gaze unflinchingly, and had carried conviction of his innocence and truthfulness. Mr. Carson felt certain that he had heard all that Jem could tell. Accordingly he turned to Job Legh.
"You were in the room the whole time while Barton was speaking to me, I think?"
"Yes, sir," answered Job.
"You'll excuse my asking plain and direct questions; the information I am gaining is really a relief to my mind, I don't know how, but it is,—will you tell me if you had any idea of Barton's guilt in this matter before?"
"None whatever, so help me God!" said Job, solemnly. "To tell truth (and axing your forgiveness, Jem), I had never got quite shut of the notion that Jem here had done it. At times I was as clear of his innocence as I was of my own; and whenever I took to reasoning about it, I saw he could not have been the man that did it. Still I never thought of Barton."
"And yet by his confession he must have been absent at the time," said Mr. Carson, referring to his slip of paper.
"Ay, and for many a day after,—I can't rightly say how long. But still, you see, one's often blind to many a thing that lies right under one's nose, till it's pointed out. And till I heard what John Barton had to say yon night, I could not have seen what reason he had for doing it; while in the case of Jem, any one who looked at Mary Barton might have seen a cause for jealousy, clear enough."
"Then you believe that Barton had no knowledge of my son's unfortunate,—" he looked at Jem, "of his attentions to Mary Barton. This young man, Wilson, had heard of them, you see."
"The person who told me said clearly she neither had, nor would tell Mary's father," interposed Jem. "I don't believe he'd ever heard of it; he weren't a man to keep still in such a matter, if he had."
"Besides," said Job, "the reason he gave on his death-bed, so to speak, was enough; 'specially to those who knew him."