"I shall speak to Mr. Eversleigh."
"Very well," said Bennet, after a moment's thought. "He will not deny the truth of what I have told you. I agree. I will be here at noon to-morrow for your decision. Only remember that the fate of the Eversleighs is in your hands, as I have said, and in yours alone."
And he turned and left her.
CHAPTER XXIII
On entering the house, Kitty went at once to her own room, though she knew Helen Eversleigh would think it strange, perhaps even unkind. "But she will never imagine why it is," thought the girl; "she will suppose Bennet had something painful to tell me about my father."
Kitty Thornton was a brave woman, and she had brains as well as courage; she sat down in her room, and deliberately set herself to consider the situation in which she now found herself. The conversation with Bennet had occupied but a short while, and she had hardly realized all it meant for her. Now, sitting there quietly, she went over it again. On the face of it, what he had told her about Eversleigh seemed improbable in the extreme, but she recalled the positiveness of his assertions and the air of truthfulness and certainty with which he had made them. It was clear to her that Bennet believed he did hold the fate of Eversleigh in his hands.
Then she thought of Francis Eversleigh. In her mind's eye she saw him as he had appeared to her in her girlhood—handsome, generous, large-hearted, kindness itself. Her instinct told her that he was not formed of the stuff out of which the thief and the swindler were made. And she recalled Bennet's words, "Mr. Eversleigh put the blame of the sale on his dead partner Silwood"—Silwood, the man in whose chambers her father's body had been found; yes, Kitty had no doubt whatever that if any one was guilty, he was the criminal. She remembered Silwood's appearance very well, and she contrasted it with that of Eversleigh, to the great advantage of the latter. It was incredible that Eversleigh was a bad man. But though not actually guilty, was he a party to the guilt of Silwood all along, and therefore guilty in that sense? Or had he discovered what Silwood had done only after Silwood's death? Well, she must wait until she had heard what Francis Eversleigh had to say.
For, after all, these were minor points. In all likelihood, she concluded, Eversleigh would confirm Bennet's statements. If so, what then?
And, now, Kitty Thornton had need of all her courage.