“Why do you say that? It isn’t as if I were poor; but even then you wouldn’t have the right to refuse me if I insisted. It was my fault that it ever came out about St. Johnswort. It might have come out about you, but the harm to Mr. St. John--I did that, and why should you take it upon yourself?”
“Because I was really to blame from the beginning to the end. If it had not been for my pitiful wish to shine as the confidant of mystery, nothing would have been known of the affair. Even when you asked me that night if it had not happened at St. Johnswort, I know now that I had a wretched triumph in saying that it had, and I was so full of this that I did not think to caution you against repeating what I had owned.”
“Yes,” said the girl, with her unsparing honesty, “if you had given me any hint, I would not have told for the world. Of course I did not think--a girl wouldn’t--of the effect it would have on the property.”
“No, you wouldn’t think of that,” said Hewson. Though he agreed with her, he would have preferred that she should continue to blame herself; but he took himself severely in hand again. “So, you see, the fault was altogether mine, and if there is to be any penalty it ought to fall upon me.”
“Yes,” said Miss Hernshaw, “and if there has been a fault there ought to be a penalty, don’t you think? It would have been no penalty for me to buy St. Johnswort. My father wouldn’t have minded it.” She blushed suddenly, and added, “I don’t mean that--You may be so rich that--I think I had better stop.”
“No, no!” said Hewson, amused, and glad of the relief. “Go on. I will tell you anything you wish to know.”
“I don’t wish, to know anything,” said Miss Hernshaw, haughtily.
Her words seemed to put an end to an interview for which there was no longer any excuse.
Hewson rose. “Good-by,” he said, and he was rather surprised at her putting out her hand, but he took it gratefully. “Will you make my adieux to Mrs. Rock? And excuse my coming a second time to trouble you!”
“I don’t see how you could have helped coming,” said Miss Hernshaw, “when you thought I might write to Mr. St. John at once.”