to ask Pinney the precise effect of his letter
as Pinney had gathered it from print and hearsay. It was not in Pinney's
nature to give any but a rose-colored and illusory report of this; but
he felt that Northwick was sizing him up while he listened, and knew
just when and how much he was lying. This heightened Pinney's respect
for him, and apparently his divination of Pinney's character had nothing
to do with Northwick's feeling toward him. So far as Pinney could make
out it was friendly enough, and as their talk went on he imagined a
growing trustfulness in it. Northwick kept his inferences and
conclusions to himself. His natural reticence had been intensified by
the solitude of his exile; it stopped him short of any expression
concerning Pinney's answers; and Pinney had to construct Northwick's
opinions from his questions. His own cunning was restlessly at work
exploring Northwick's motives in each of these, and it was not at fault
in the belief it brought him that Northwick clearly understood the
situation at home. He knew that the sensation of his offence and flight
were past, and that so far as any public impulse to punish him was
concerned, he might safely go back. But he knew that the involuntary
machinery of the law must begin to operate upon him as soon as he came
within its reach; and he could not learn from Pinney that anything had
been done to block its wheels. The letter from his daughters threw no
light upon this point; it was an appeal for some sign of life and love
from him; nothing more. They, or the friends who were advising them, had
not thought it best to tell him more than that they were well, and
anxious to hear from him; and Pinney really knew nothing more about
them. He had not been asked to Hatboro' to see them before he started,
and with all the will he had to invent comfortable and attractive
circumstances for them, he was at a disadvantage for want of material.
The most that he could conjecture was that Mr. Hilary's family had not
broken off their friendly relations with them. He had heard old Hilary
criticised for it, and he told Northwick so.

"I guess he's been standing by you, Mr. Northwick, as far as he
consistently could," he said; and Northwick ventured to reply that he
expected that. "It was young Hilary who brought me the letter, and
talked the whole thing up with me," Pinney added.

Northwick had apparently not expected this; but he let no more than the
fact appear. He kept silent