My wife said, "Oh, yes," and after a moment, a very painful moment, in which I think we all tried to imagine something that would delay the real business, Mrs. Hasketh began again.
"Mrs. March," she said, in a low voice, and with a curious, apologetic kind of embarrassment, "we have come—Fay wanted we should come and ask if you knew about her father—"
"Why, didn't he come to you last night?" my wife began.
"Yes, he did," said Mrs. Hasketh, in a crest-fallen sort, "But we thought—we thought—you might know where he was. And Fay—Did he tell you what he was going to do?"
"Yes," my wife gasped back.
The young girl put aside her veil in turning to my wife, and showed a face which had all the ill-starred beauty of poor Tedham, with something more in it that she never got from that handsome reprobate—conscience, soul—whatever we choose to call a certain effluence of heaven which blesses us with rest and faith whenever we behold it in any human countenance. She was very young-looking, and her voice had a wistful innocence.
"Do you think my father will be here again to-night? Oh, I must see him!"
I perceived that my wife could not speak, and I said, to gain time, "Why, I've been expecting him to come in at any moment;" and this was true enough.
"I guess he's not very far off," said old Hasketh. "I don't believe but what he'll turn up." Within the comfort these words were outwardly intended to convey to the anxious child, I felt an inner contempt of Tedham, a tacit doubt of the man's nature, which was more to me than the explicit faith in his return. For some reason Hasketh had not trusted Tedham's decision, and he might very well have done this without impugning anything but the weakness of his will.
My wife now joined our side, apparently because it was the only theory of the case that could be openly urged. "Oh, yes, I am sure. In fact he promised my husband to let him know later where he was. Didn't you understand him so, my dear?"