“That’s so. It will all come to light some day. And now, it’s a bitter morning, the drifts are deep, and the trail lost in snow; Svendsen will have some trouble in driving you to Leslie’s, and you can’t go without food.”
Prescott called to Mrs. Svendsen, and she presently brought in breakfast. Jernyngham ate a little before he got into the buggy and was driven away. He reached the Leslie homestead greatly disturbed. The painful mystery was as deep as ever, but he was inclined to think he had been following a false clue; the man on whom all his suspicions had centered might be innocent. It was so seldom that he changed his mind that he felt lost in a maze of doubt, and in his perplexity he told Gertrude what he had found and related his conversation with Prescott. They were alone and she listened with fixed attention, studiously hiding her feelings behind an inscrutable expression.
“I don’t know what to think; for perhaps the first time in my life, I’m utterly at a loss and need a lead,” he said. “Everything we have learned about the man tells against him, and yet I felt I could not doubt his unsupported assurance. There was a genuine pride in the way he referred me to his neighbors for his character for truthfulness and one must admit that a number of them have an unshakable belief in him. Then Colston’s wavering; and Muriel has shown her confidence in the fellow in a striking manner.”
“Ah!” said Gertrude sharply. “You have noticed that?”
“I could hardly fail to do so. It is no affair of mine and perhaps a breach of good manners to mention it, but if I were in Colston’s place, I should feel disturbed about the way in which his sister-in-law has taken Prescott’s part.”
“Why?”
“The reason should be obvious. Leaving the man’s guilt or innocence out of the question, there is his position; I needn’t enlarge on it. Muriel’s family is an old and honored one; it would be insufferable that she should break away from its traditions. Then we know what her upbringing has been. Could one calmly contemplate her throwing herself away on a working farmer?”
He had appealed to his daughter’s strongest prejudices, which had for a while sunk into abeyance and then sprung into life again. All that he had said about Muriel applied with equal force to her. She had yielded to a mad infatuation, and returning sanity had brought her a crushing sense of shame. She might have made a costly sacrifice for the rancher’s sake, flinging away all she had hitherto valued; she had sought him, humbled herself to charm him, and he had never spared a tender thought for her. Despising herself, her jealous rage and wounded pride could only be appeased by his punishment.
“Prescott,” she said coldly, “is a dangerous man; I have never met anybody so insinuating and plausible. When he speaks to you, it’s very hard to disbelieve him; his manner’s convincing.”
“I felt that,” said her father with a troubled air.