“Yes—yes! I see your—difficulty,” he began, making the futile attempt to disown any share in it. “But perhaps—perhaps it isn't so bad as it seems. Perhaps no harm will come. Perhaps he really means to do well; and if you are vigilant in—in keeping him out of temptation——” Sewell stopped, sensible that he was not coming to anything, and rubbed his forehead.
“Do you think,” asked Lemuel, dry mouthed with misery, “that I ought to have told Mrs. Harmon at once?”
“Why, it is always best to be truthful and above-board—as a principle,” said the minister, feeling himself somehow dragged from his moorings.
“Then I had better do it yet!”
“Yes,” said Sewell, and he paused. “Yes. That is to say—As the mischief is done—Perhaps—perhaps there is no haste. If you exercise vigilance—But if he has been in prison—Do you know what he was in for?”
“No. I didn't know he had been in at all till we got to my room. And then I couldn't ask him—I was afraid to.”
“Yes,” said Sewell, kindly if helplessly.
“I was afraid, if I sent him off—or tried to—that he would tell about my being in the Wayfarer's Lodge that night, and they would think I had been a tramp. I could have done it, but I thought he might tell some lie about me; and they might get to know about the trial——”
“I see,” said Sewell.
“I hated to lie,” said Lemuel piteously, “but I seemed to have to.”