"No," said John, mildly. "I don't wonder at your thinking so, of course. But that isn't my meaning. For all that, I have done her great wrong, not wilfully, not wickedly, I hope not, at least not intentionally, only as there is sin in most folly, and if not sin there is harm. Yes, I have harmed the poor girl," continued John, sadly. "I see it all now, and I must undo it if I can."
"If I can understand what you are aiming at, may I be carbonadoed, dear fellow," rejoined Tom.
"I'll explain my meaning, if I can. You see, don't, you? That by going so often as I did to High Beech Farm, I laid myself open to suspicion."
"Well, if you come to that, of course the idea was that you were smitten. I know more about that sort of thing than I did then, for I know, before I came up, there was no road so pleasant to me as the road to the Mumbles. An abominable road it is to be sure, but then there was a Kate at the end of it; and so I made a point of riding out there every day almost."
"A gate?" said John, whose mind, occupied with one idea, could with difficulty take in another.
"A gate! No, no, a Kate—Kate Elliston."
"I see, I see! My dear fellow, I wish you joy and success. But, as I was saying, I did lay myself open to suspicion. And I was warned about it. Your brother warned me, and so did Mr. Rubric; and at the time I am afraid I was more vexed than pleased with their kind intentions. But that does not matter—my being suspected. The worst of it was, the poor girl came to be suspected too. And then, it seems, stories have been told about her, and she has lost a husband that was to be, and all through me. You said as much as this last night, Tom."
"Did I? I don't know that I did, Tincroft."
"Oh, but you did. And now, the least I can do, and the only thing I can do, as an honourable man, is to try and make things straight again between young Wilson and his poor cousin."
"You'll be a clever fellow to do that, John," observed his friend, thoughtfully, and inwardly quoting a couplet he had somewhere met with in his reading—