"Of course it occurred to me. Haven't you heard from him?"
"I have. But hardly in time for him to do anything."
He reflected. Jewdwine had written; therefore his intentions had been good. But he had delayed considerably in writing; evidently, then, he had been embarrassed. He had not mentioned that he had heard from him; and why shouldn't he have mentioned it? Oh, well—after all, why should he? At the back of his mind there had crawled a wriggling, worm-like suspicion of Jewdwine. He saw it wriggling and stamped on it instantly.
There were signs of acute anxiety on Miss Harden's face. It was as if she implored him to say something consoling about Jewdwine, something that would make him pure in her troubled sight. A light dawned on him.
"Did you write to him?" she asked.
He saw what she wanted him to say, and he said it. "Yes, I wrote. But I suppose I did it too late, like everything else I've done."
He had told the truth, but not the whole truth, which would have been damaging to Jewdwine. To deny altogether that he had written would have been a clumsy and unnecessary falsehood, easily detected. Something more masterly was required of him, and he achieved it without an instant's hesitation, and with his eyes open to the consequences. He knew that he was deliberately suppressing the one detail that proved his own innocence. But as their eyes met he saw that she knew it, too; that she divined him through the web that wrapped him round.
"Well," she said, "if you wrote to Mr. Jewdwine, you did indeed do your best."
The answer, on her part, was no less masterly in its way. He could not help admiring its significant ambiguity. It was both an act of justice, an assurance of her belief in him, and a superb intimation of her trust in Horace Jewdwine. And it was not only superb, it was almost humble in that which it further confessed and implied—her gratitude to him for having made that act of justice consistent with loyalty to her cousin. How clever of her to pack so many meanings into one little phrase!
"I did it too late," he said, emphasizing the point which served for Jewdwine's vindication.