"Oh, not at all," said the unsuspicious Susan. "I was coming to that directly. There was a cousin of Mary's, Richard, from New York, who used to come up here very often. I sometimes saw them together, and then it was that she looked so gay and happy. I am sure that they loved each other, and every one thought that some day they would be married. Of course I have never heard any of these things from her, and perhaps I ought not to talk about them; but you know such things will creep out. Well, Richard Crawford does not come up here any more. They say that he has been leading a dreadful life, drinking and going into bad places, until he is all broken down and a miserable cripple. There is another cousin, a Colonel, who comes up here now, and he and Mary go out together sometimes. The Crawfords are notorious for trying to keep all their property in the family; and so, as the other has proved so bad, probably this cousin and Mary may be married. But she looks like a ghost when I meet her, at church or when she is riding out; and I know that she is unhappy. Perhaps she loves the poor young man still, bad as he is. Don't you think that is possible, cousin Joe? And may that not be what ails her?"
"Why yes, you dear little soul, I should think very likely!" said the city girl, leaning down her head on her hand and trying to still the throbbing of her temples. What a revelation was here, from lips so innocent and evidently so truthful! And how the whole story tallied with what she had heard in her ambush and conjectured from other circumstances! She was on the right scent, beyond a question—but here came her difficulty,—how to cut this knot of villainy, even now that it lay plainly before her! This was the question that labored through the young girl's brain and bent down her head on her hand. And yet it must be done, whatever the difficulty. Courage, Joseph Harris!—there never was a difficult thing, either in wickedness or benevolence, that a woman could not master when she once fairly set about it!
"It is indeed a sad story that you have been telling," she said, "and it interests me more and more in the family and especially in Mary. I wish I could see her and talk to her for half an hour." She had gathered all the information that she had any right to expect, and now came the necessary confidence. "What would you say now, Susy, if I could put back some of the light into Miss Mary Crawford's eyes?"
"You?" and the country girl looked at her as if a pair of horns had suddenly sprouted from under the dark hair.
"Yes, I!" echoed the "amateur detective."
"I don't see how you can do it, especially as you do not know these people or anything much about them," said Susan. "But indeed I should be very much pleased if you could, and I should—yes, I should just think you a witch!"
"Well," said Josephine, "suppose then that I had known something about these people for a long time, and that I had come up to West Falls not only to see my dear aunt and cousin, but to serve them in a way that they knew nothing about—would you and your mother keep the secret and help me?"
The wondering eyes looked at her more wonderingly still, but they seemed to see that the speaker was not jesting, and some of those country people have a faith in the abilities of people from the "big city," not always justified.
"Certainly I would," said Susy, "and I am sure that mother would do anything to serve Mary. But what is it all, Cousin Joe?"
"That is what I am just going to tell you, or at least a part of it," said Josephine. "In one word, all these stories about Richard Crawford are lies. He is a good, true-hearted young man, as can be found in the world. I know him very well, and visit him and his sister every day or two—sometimes, when I am very idle, every day. I love him as I would my own brother, if I had one."