Of course I assented, and a few minutes later we set forth together.
For a while she walked by my side in silence with an air of deep reflection, and I refrained from interrupting her thoughts, having no very clear idea as to what I should say to her. Moreover, my own mind was pretty busily occupied. Presently she spoke, in a tentative way, as if opening a discussion.
“I am afraid you must think me very weak and silly to be so much upset by this new trouble.”
“Indeed, I don’t,” I replied. “It is a most disturbing and humiliating affair and it will be intensely unpleasant for us all, but especially for Barbara—to say nothing of Dimsdale.”
“Dr. Dimsdale is not our concern,” said she, “but it will be perfectly horrible for Barbara. For she really has been rather casual, poor girl, and they are sure to make things unpleasant for her. It will be a most horrid scandal. Don’t you think so?”
To be candid, I did. Indeed, I had just been picturing to myself the possibilities with an officious coroner—and he would not need to be so very officious, either—and one or two cross-grained jurymen. Barbara might be subjected to a very unpleasant examination. But I did not think it necessary to say this to Madeline. Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof. I contented myself with a vague agreement.
There was another interval of silence. Then, a little to my surprise, she drew closer to me, and, slipping her hand under my arm, said very earnestly: “Rupert, I want you to tell me what you really think. What is it all about?”
I looked down, rather disconcerted, into the face that was turned up to me so appealingly; and suddenly—and rather irrelevantly—it was borne in on me that it was a singularly sweet and charming face. I had never quite realized it before. But then she had never before looked at me quite in this way; with this trustful, coaxing, appealing expression.
“I don’t quite understand you, Madeline,” I said, evasively. “I know no more about it than you do.”
“Oh, but you do, Rupert. You are a lawyer and you have had a lot of experience. You must have formed some opinion as to why they have decided to hold an inquest. Do tell me what you think.”