I knew Carter to be a gossipy young devil, so I held my peace about Cassidy; but it was with an effort. My impulse was to give Carter the lie direct, but I remembered Mrs Chauncey’s last words and refrained.
We walked along in silence, and after a while Carter stopped in the road opposite a small house, the door of which stood partly open. There were voices outside, and as Carter said, “Hush! listen!” we stopped instinctively, and my heart sank as I recognised a voice that said “Good-night.” I moved on hastily, disgusted at being trapped into eavesdropping, and Carter laughed.
“That’s the only friend! There’s no mistaking that. But I wonder why he’s coming away,” said the youth, with unmistakable and insinuating emphasis on the last words.
No one answered his self-satisfied cackling. I was listening to the brisk walk behind us. I would have known it in a million. Closer and closer it came; his sleeve brushed mine as he stepped lightly past. I let him go, and I don’t know why. But I felt like a whipped cur for doing it.
It seemed to me that I must heretofore have been living in extraordinary ignorance of what was going on round about me in a small place; for, as though it only needed the start, from the first mention of this story by Carter I was always hearing it, or a similar one, or one half corroborating it.
I made an effort to see Cassidy the first thing next morning, but he had left his hotel—presumably having gone out to the works again. After a day or two had passed I felt glad that I had not met him—glad because I felt sure that he would have noticed that there was something wrong. He would instinctively have detected the cordiality and confidence which were controlled by an effort of will, and were not—as they should have been, and as they did again become—spontaneous and real.
This worried me exceedingly and I turned it over and over again to get at the truth, and eventually it came to this. I knew that they were right as to the cause of his disfigurement; it was impossible to look at him and not accept it. I had no high moral prejudices about this. I only pitied him the more. But I did not believe a word of the rest of the story. All presumption and a heap of circumstances were against me, but I am glad to say that, but for the first hesitation, I never, never doubted him.
It may have been a week or two after this that I met Mrs Chauncey in camp one afternoon. I had not seen her since the evening already referred to, and, as it was an off afternoon, I asked leave to join her in her walk home.
We wandered on slowly through the outskirts of the camp, along the most direct road to the Chaunceys’ house. Since I had heard and seen what I had that evening my interest in Mrs Mallandane had increased. I never passed the house without looking. I claim—even to myself—that it was real interest and not curiosity that prompted me. Once or twice I had seen the figure in simple black, but not sufficiently clearly to have known the face again. Her figure I don’t think I should have mistaken; it was rather striking. There was also a little girl who used to sit under a mimosa-tree studying her lessons or doing sums on a slate. She and I became friends. I was drawn to the youngster because, when passing one day, I took the unwarrantable liberty of looking over her shoulder to see what the sum was. After a decent pause, during which I might have taken the hint, she turned up at me a very serious little face lighted by large blue eyes, and lisped slowly:
“I don’t like people to thtand behind, becauth I fordet my thums.”