‘No, no, you shall not give way,’ said his friend, just touching his fingers.  ’It all looks very sad and hopeless, but I will not believe it is hopeless.  Refuse to believe that one worst thing, the only thing for which there is no remedy.  Come, defy yourself to believe it!  You are strong enough for that; there is manhood in you for anything that is worth bearing, however hard.’

He could not reply to her encouragement; who cannot devise words of exhortation? and what idler than such words when the heart agonises?

’Try and listen to me, Wilfrid.  If I make you angry with me, it is better than abandoning yourself to despondency.  I firmly believe that this is a matter which time will bring right.  Emily is acting hastily; I am convinced of that.  Time is on your side; try and accept him as a friend.  We are not living in a novel; there are no such things as mysteries which last a lifetime.  Your part is to draw upon all the manliness you own, to have faith in yourself, and to wait.  Have faith in her, too; there are few like her; some day you will see that this only made her better worth winning.—­Now answer me a question.’

Wilfrid raised his head.

’Do you not in your heart believe that she is incapable of folly or wrongheadedness?’

‘I believe that no truer woman lives.’

’And rightly, be sure of it.  Believing that, you know she cannot break her word to you without some reason which you would yourself say was good and sufficient.  She imagines she has such a reason; imagines it in all sincerity.  Time will show her that she has been in error, and she will confess it.  She has all her faculties, no doubt, but a trial such as this leads her to see things in ways we cannot realise.’

‘You forget that it is not this shock that has so affected her.’

’Wilfrid, remember that her father’s death is itself mysterious.  She may know more of what led to it than anyone else does.  She may very well have foreseen it; it may have distracted her, the cause, whatever it was.  She could not disclose anything—­some secret, perhaps—­that nearly concerned her father; you know how strong were the ties between them.’

Perhaps it was inevitable that a suggestion of this kind should ultimately offer itself.  Wilfrid had not hit upon the idea, for he had from the first accepted without reflection the reasons for Hood’s suicide which were accepted by everyone who spoke of the subject.  Mrs. Baxendale only delivered herself of the thought in fervour of kindly-devised argument.  She paused, reviewing it in her mind, but did netlike to lay more stress upon it.  Wilfrid, also thoughtful, kept silence.

‘Now, there’s the gong,’ Mrs. Baxendale continued, ’and I shall have to go to the politicians.  But I think I have given you a grain of comfort.  Think of a prosy old woman inciting you to endure for the sake of the greatest prize you can aim at?  Keep saying to yourself that Emily cannot do wrong; if she did say a word or two she didn’t mean—­well, well, we poor women!  Go to bed early, and we’ll talk again after breakfast to-morrow.’