“Yes, she was.”
“Then her distress, and even anger, are natural enough. We won’t discuss the girl’s history; probably I know all that I need to. But whatever her misdoing, you certainly didn’t wish to drive her to suicide.”
Rhoda deigned no reply.
“All the same,” he continued in his gentlest tone, “it turns out that you have practically done so. If Mary had taken the girl back that despair would most likely never have come upon her. Isn’t it natural that Mary should repent of having been guided by you, and perhaps say rather severe things?”
“Natural, no doubt. But it is just as natural for me to resent blame where I have done nothing blameworthy.”
“You are absolutely sure that this is the case?”
“I thought you expressed a conviction that I was in the right?”
There was no smile, but Everard believed that he detected its possibility on the closed lips.
“I have got into the way of always thinking so—in questions of this kind. But perhaps you tend to err on the side of severity. Perhaps you make too little allowance for human weakness.”
“Human weakness is a plea that has been much abused, and generally in an interested spirit.”