Of course—of course he believed her word. Viola, he said, might keep the truth from them if (he smiled in spite of himself) if she thought it would not be good for them to know it. But she had never told them an untruth. Never. She was—essentially—truthful.
"Only," he said, "we don't know what she may have been driven to. She may have been trying to shield that man Jevons."
I said I was convinced that, technically, Jevons was innocent. It looked as if he had been criminally reckless and inconsiderate; but he seemed to have honestly thought that there was no harm in Viola's joining him in Bruges.
But the Canon didn't want to know what Jevons had thought, honestly or otherwise. Or what Viola had thought. "It's what they've done," he said. "You can't get over it."
I said what they'd done didn't amount to more than, looking at the
Belfry. I could very easily get over that.
He said that I was an Israelite indeed. But the world wasn't all
Belfries, and we must look at it like men of the world.
"They travelled together, Furnival. They travelled together."
I said, "Yes. And it wasn't till they'd got to Bruges the second time that Jevons realized that they never ought to. As soon as he did realize it, he cleared out."
He did that too late, the Canon insisted. It was no good my trying to shield Jevons. It wasn't easy to believe that Jevons was as innocent as Viola, and, as nobody was going to believe it, the injury the brute had done her was irreparable.
"Not," I said, "if she marries me."