“Until Arthur shall be cleared, you mean?”
“No,” she answered—a vision of Hamish and his guilt flashing across her—“I mean for good.”
“Why does not Arthur assert his innocence to Mr. Yorke? Constance, I am sure you know, as well as I do, that he is not guilty. Has he asserted it?”
She made no answer.
“As I would have wished to serve you, so will I serve Arthur,” said Mr. Huntley. “I told your father and mother, Constance, that I should make it my business to investigate the charge against him; I shall leave not a stone unturned to bring his innocence to light.”
The avowal terrified Constance, and she lost her self-possession. “Oh don’t! don’t!” she uttered. “You must not, indeed! you do not know the mischief it might do.”
“Mischief to what?—to whom?” exclaimed Mr. Huntley.
Constance buried her face in her hands, and burst into tears. The next moment she had raised it, and taken Mr. Huntley’s hand between hers. “You are papa’s friend! You would do us good and not harm—is it not so?” she beseechingly said.
“My dear child,” he exclaimed, quite confounded by her words—her distress: “you know that I would not harm any of you for the world.”
“Then pray do not seek to dive into that unhappy story,” she whispered. “It must not be too closely looked into.”