At supper that evening, Vane suggested the incident had proved the necessity of selling Blackthorn and much of the breeding stock to Sir Lionel March, a neighboring landowner. "The offer is generous under the circumstances," he said. "A difficult horse consumes feed and wages, and the estate cannot carry sentimental burdens forever." Alexander set down his glass. "You were eager to sell him before Mr. Sayer had even arrived," he observed. Vane replied that prudence was not a crime, then smiled at the other gentlemen as if the matter were settled.
Lady Marianne waited until the household had dispersed before entering her nephew's study. The fire burned low, and a bundle of contracts lay unopened beside the day's correspondence. "You looked troubled when Eleanor spoke of her father," she said. Alexander did not pretend otherwise. He remembered Edward Hale as a quiet man whose boots were always muddy and whose reputation had been beyond question until the day Vane announced the missing funds. Edward had asked for an opportunity to explain; Alexander had been away in London, and by the time he returned the dismissal was finished.
"My father signed the order," Alexander said. Lady Marianne shook her head. "Your father signed a paper handed to him by a man he trusted. That is not the same as knowing the truth." She placed a worn envelope on the desk. "Edward wrote to me before he died. I could not bring myself to give it to you while he was still alive, because he asked that Eleanor not be drawn into another public accusation. But there is something you ought to read now."
Alexander opened the envelope. The handwriting was steady but cramped, the work of a man who had learned to conserve paper and patience. Edward described the sale of three young horses four years earlier, a transaction he had questioned because the sum entered into the accounts was far lower than the agreed price. He claimed to have kept a duplicate record in his personal notebook, but when he asked the steward to compare it with the official ledger, the notebook disappeared from his office. Three days later, the missing money was blamed on him.
At the bottom of the letter, beneath a line about Eleanor's future, Edward had written: "I ask for no special kindness. I ask only that the truth be allowed to stand where I could not." Alexander read the words twice. He had been taught that honor meant defending one's family name, but he had never considered how easy it was for a powerful family to damage another person's name while calling the injury a matter of business. When Lady Marianne left, he remained at the desk until the candles burned nearly to their holders.
The following morning he rode to the small cottage beyond the mill where Eleanor lived with her widowed aunt. It was a modest place with roses climbing its worn brick wall and a worktable set beneath the front window. Eleanor answered wearing an ordinary blue wool dress and an apron dusted with flour. She had been kneading bread because the household could not afford to employ a cook, and she seemed genuinely astonished that Alexander Harcourt had come without servants or a carriage.