‘Dear Mr. Clare, you must think me very weak—cowardly, even—if you suppose that I can fear to face a little poverty with the husband I love. I can bear anything except his disgrace.’
‘My poor child, God grant you may be spared that bitter trial. If your husband is innocent of all part in his first wife’s death, as you and I believe, let us hope that the world will never know him as the man who has been suspected of such an awful crime.’
‘Your son knows,’ said Laura.
‘My son knows. Yes, Laura, but you cannot for a moment suppose that Edward would make any use of his knowledge against your interest. It was his regard for you that prompted him to the course he took last Sunday night.’
‘Is it regard for me that makes him hate my husband? Forgive me for speaking plainly, dear Mr. Clare. You have been all goodness to me—always—ever since I can remember. My heart is full of affection for you and your kind wife; but I know that your son is my husband’s enemy, and I tremble at the thought of his power to do us harm.’
The Vicar heard her with some apprehension. He, too, had perceived the malignity of Edward’s feelings towards John Treverton. He ascribed the young man’s malice to the jealousy of a rejected suitor; and he knew that from jealousy to hatred was but a step. But he could not believe that his son—his own flesh and blood—could be capable of doing a great wrong to a man who had never consciously injured him. That Edward should make any evil use of his knowledge of John Treverton’s identity with the suspected Chicot was to the Vicar’s mind incredible—nay, impossible.
‘You have nothing to fear from Edward, my dear,’ he said, gently patting the young wife’s hand as it lay despondingly in his; ‘make your mind easy on that score.’
‘There is Mr. Gerard. He, too, knows my husband’s secret.’
‘He, too, will respect it. No one can look in John Treverton’s face and believe him a murderer.’
‘No,’ cried Laura, naïvely; ‘those cruel people who wrote in the newspapers had never seen him.’