“He has ridden forward an hour or more ago.  Can I take any message to him for you?” said the lawyer.  “Or if you wish to talk of business, to speak to me is to speak to him.”

“That may be so,” answered Suzanne, “still I like to draw my water at the fountain itself.  Yet, as he has gone, I beg you to listen to me, for when you have heard what I have to say I think that you will bring him back.  You came here about Ralph Kenzie, did you not, and my mother told you that he is not the man whom you seek, did she not?”

The lawyer nodded.

“Well, I tell you that all this tale is false, for he is the very man,” and she poured out the true story of Ralph and of the plot that had been made to deceive them about him.

Now, as I have said, Suzanne’s English was none of the best and it is possible that the lawyer did not understand.  For my part, however, I think that he understood well enough, for she told me afterwards that is face grew grey and anxious as he listened, and that at length he said: 

“All this you tell me is very strange and weighty, so much so that I must bring my friend back to look more closely into the matter.  Return now to the farm and say nothing of having met me, for by this evening, or to-morrow at the latest, we will come there again and sift out the truth of this question.”

To this she agreed, being guileless, and the lawyer rode away after the other.  All that day and all the next Suzanne scarcely spoke to me, but I saw that she was expecting something to happen, and that she glanced continually towards the path by which the Englishmen had journeyed, thinking to see them riding back to the farm.  But they rode back no more, and I am sure that the cunning lawyer never breathed one word of his meeting with Suzanne and of what took place at it to the young lord.  That book was shut and it did not please him to reopen it, since to do so might have cost him ten thousand pounds.  On the third morning I found Suzanne still looking down the path, and my patience being exhausted by her silence, I spoke to her sharply.

“What are you doing, girl?” I asked.  “Have we not had enough visitors of late that you must stand here all day awaiting more?”

“I seek no new visitors,” Suzanne said, “but those who have been here only, and I see now that I seek in vain.”

“What do you mean, Suzanne?”

Now of a sudden she seemed to make up her mind to speak, for she turned and faced me boldly, saying: 

“I mean, mother, that I told the Englishman with the red hair, the agent, that all the fine tale you spun to him about Ralph was false, and that he was the man they came to find.”

“You dared to do that, girl?” I said, then checked myself and added, “Well, what did the man say?”

“He said that he would ride on and bring the young lord back that I might talk with him, but they have not come.”

“No, nor will they, Suzanne, for if they sought they did not wish to find, or at least the lawyer did not wish it, for he had too much at stake.  Well, things have gone finely with you, seeing that your hands are clean from sin, and that Ralph still stays at your side.”