It was Mr. Merrill who spoke first when she was gone.
“I was coming up to Brampton,” he said, “and Tom Collins, who drives the Truro coach, told me you were sick. I had not heard of it.”
Mr. Merrill, too, had something on his mind, and did not quite know how to go on. There was in William Wetherell, as he sat in the chair with his eyes fixed on his visitor's face, a dignity which Mr. Merrill had not seen before—had not thought the man might possess.
“I was coming to see you, anyway,” Mr. Merrill said.
“I did you a wrong—though as God judges me, I did not think of it at the time. It was not until Alexander Duncan spoke to me last week that I thought of it at all.”
“Yes,” said Wetherell.
“You see,” continued Mr. Merrill wiping his brow, for he found the matter even more difficult than he had imagined, “it was not until Duncan told me how you had acted in his library that I guessed the truth—that I remembered myself how you had acted. I knew that you were not mixed up in politics, but I also knew that you were an intimate friend of Jethro's, and I thought that you had been let into the secret of the woodchuck session. I don't defend the game of politics as it is played, Mr. Wetherell, but all of us who are friends of Jethro's are generally willing to lend a hand in any little manoeuvre that is going on, and have a practical joke when we can. It was not until I saw you sitting there beside Duncan that the idea occurred to me. It didn't make a great deal of difference whether Duncan or Lovejoy got to the House or not, provided they didn't learn of the matter too early, because some of their men had been bought off that day. It suited Jethro's sense of humor to play the game that way—and it was very effective. When I saw you there beside Duncan I remembered that he had spoken about the Guardian letters, and the notion occurred to me to get him to show you his library. I have explained to him that you were innocent. I—I hope you haven't been worrying.”
William Wetherell sat very still for a while, gazing out of the window, but a new look had come into his eyes.
“Jethro Bass did not know that you—that you had used me?” he asked at length.
“No,” replied Mr. Merrill thickly, “no. He didn't know a thing about it—he doesn't know it now, I believe.”