She crept sighing back to bed, and after a little while, Suzette came, dressed, to look after her. "I think I'm going to get a little sleep, now," she said. "But don't forget to stop Mr. Putney." Suzette went out into the thin, sweet summer morning air, and walked up and down the avenue between the lodge and the empty mansion. She had not slept, either; it was from her first drowse that Adeline had wakened her. But she was young, and the breath of the cool, southwest wind was a bath of rest to her fevered senses. She felt herself grow stronger in it, and she tried to think what she ought to do. If her purpose of the day before still seemed so wholly and perfectly just, it seemed very difficult; and she began to ask herself whether she had a right to compel Adeline's consent to it. She felt the perplexities of the world where good and evil are often so mixed that when the problem passes from thoughts to deeds, the judgment is darkened and the will palsied. Till now the wrong had always appeared absolutely apart from the right; for the first time she perceived that a great right might involve a lesser wrong; and she was daunted. But she meant to fight out her fight wholly within herself before she spoke with Adeline again. That day Matt Hilary came over from his farm to see Wade, whom he found as before, in his study at the church, and disposed to talk over Northwick's letter. "It's a miserable affair; humiliating; heart-sickening. That poor soul's juggle with his conscience is a most pathetic spectacle. I can't bring myself to condemn him very fiercely. But while others may make allowance for him, it's ruinous for him to excuse himself. That's truly perdition. Don't you feel that?" Wade asked. "Yes, yes," Matt assented, with a kind of absence. "But there is something else I wanted to speak with you about; and I suppose it's this letter that's made it seem rather urgent now. You know when I asked you once about Jack Wilmington--" Wade shook his head. "There isn't the least hope in that direction. I'm sure there isn't. If he had cared anything for the girl, he would have shown it long ago!" "I quite agree with you," said Matt, "and that isn't what I mean. But if it would have been right and well for him to come forward at such a time, why shouldn't some other man, who does love her?" He hurried tremulously on: "Wade, let me ask you one thing more! You have seen her so much more than I; and I didn't know--Is it possible--Perhaps I ought to ask if _you_ are at all--if _you_ care for her?" "For Miss Northwick? What an idea? Not the least in the world! _Why_ do you ask?"