Susie shook her head.
‘The time was up; we knew that, and we were frightened, mother and I, though there seemed no reason for fear, for we had left no sign to find us by. Oh, I am afraid—I was always afraid—that to do that was unkind. He was papa after all; he had a right to know, at least; but mother could not forget all the dangers, all that she had gone through.’
‘I suppose, then,’ said Mr. Cattley, with a little pressure of her hand, ‘his name was not your name?’
Susie looked at him with something like terror. Her voice sank to the lowest audible tone.
‘His name—our real name—is May.’
The curate had great command of himself, and was on his guard; nevertheless she felt a thrill in the hand that held hers: Susie sensitive, and prepared to suffer, as are the unfortunate, attempted to draw hers away—but he held it fast; and when he spoke, which was not for a minute, he said, with a movement of his head,
‘I think I remember now.’
The grave look, the assenting nod, the tone were all too much for her excited nerves. She drew her hand out of his violently.
‘Then if you remember,’ cried Susie, ‘you know that it was disgrace no one could shake off. You know it was shame to bow us to the dust; that we never could hold up our heads, nor take our place with honest people, nor be friends, nor love, nor marry, with such a weight upon us as that; and now you know why John, poor John, oh, poor John!’
She hurried away from the table where the curate sat, regarding her with that compassionate look, and threw herself into her grandfather’s chair which stood dutifully by the side of the blank fireplace where Elly and John had placed it. Her simple open countenance, which had hid that secret beneath all the natural candour and truth of a character which was serene as the day, was flushed with trouble and misery. Life seemed to have revealed its sweeter mysteries to Susie only to show her how far apart she must keep herself from honest people, as she said. And her heart cried out—almost for the first time on its own account. Her thoughts had chimed in with her mother’s miseries, but had not felt them, save sympathetically; now her own time had come—and John’s—John’s, who knew nothing, who must have discovered everything at one stroke; he who was not humble, nor diffident, but so certain of himself and all that he could do. What did it matter for anybody in comparison with John?