“I will tell you what I mean by-and-bye; but in the meantime say to me in so many words—‘It is not true.’”
“It is not true!” said Roger, with emphasis.
The young man was certainly roused now—he sat quite upright, carrying high his soldierly head, not defiant as he might have been at Tillington, perfectly grave, conscious of nothing which slander could build upon. The old soldier’s eyes glistened over him—he was proud of his volunteer.
“I knew it all along,” said Colonel Sutherland, joyfully; “but to know you perfectly right, as I always believed, is not so much pleasure to me as it might be, since it proves somebody else entirely wrong. I’ll tell you now how this came about. Susan on her way here overheard part of a conversation between her brother and an old man, in which your name was introduced, and mention made of a pension which the man thought you might be induced to give him, in consequence of some discovery. This Horace forbade his sister to repeat, but Susan told me, thinking there was something wrong at the bottom. You will forgive me, Musgrave, if the idea glanced into my mind for a moment that there might be something to conceal. With that idea, thinking to appeal to my nephew’s generosity, I wrote to him, and this is the answer; see—I am assured now that there is something of importance to your interests beneath this veil.”
Roger read the letter with a rising colour; he saw the trick of it, and had hard enough ado to restrain his impatience.
“He is brother—I mean he is your nephew, Colonel Sutherland,” he said, returning the letter with a somewhat proud gesture. He thought of nothing else in his sublime, youthful contempt for this effort to dishonour him; he was innocent, and his veins tingled with momentary rage, proudly subdued; but he gave no second thought to the discovery, or to the something important and secret which this impotent slander had concealed.
However, the Colonel proceeded to question him upon the condition of his relation’s estate, and the chances there might be of some discovery of consequence. Roger answered at random, being very ignorant, quite hopeless of any good, and otherwise occupied in his mind. The old soldier was at last compelled to break up the conference from manifest signs of impatience on the part of his guest, who was anxious to go to his room and refresh himself after his journey. When Roger had really got his release, however, and was on his way to the door, the young man came back again with another inconsequent question:—
“May I ask, Colonel Sutherland, if Miss Scarsdale was aware of this—of your suspicions?” he said, fumbling wrathfully with the handle of his travelling-bag.
“Certainly not—not a word,” said Uncle Edward, gravely; and while the young man went away relieved, the old one mused in his chair, with a little humour in his smile. “I wonder, now, what it mattered if she had?” he said to himself; “they never exchanged three words in their lives.” That was very true; but there are more things than words in the world when people are young.