"Your story," I urged, "will save much valuable time when I visit Julian."
"I was thinking," he replied, "how much I should tell you. You see, merely the facts are known to me. Of what lies underneath them--I mean the motives and passions which have ordered their sequence--I may have surmised something" (here his eyes twinkled cunningly), "but I have no certitude. That part of the business concerns you, not me. 'Twere best, then, that I show you no more than the plain face of the matter."
He pushed away his plate, leaned both arms upon the table, and, with a certain wariness in his manner, told me the following tale:
"In the spring of the year, Miss Enid Marston fell sick at Court. The air of St. James's is hardly the best tonic for invalids, and she came with her uncle and guardian to the family house at Bristol to recruit. Sir Julian Harnwood must, of course, follow her; and, in order that he may enjoy her company without encroaching upon her hospitality, he hires him a house in the suburbs, upon Brandon Hill. One night, during the second week of August, came two fugitives from Sedgemoor to his door. Sir Julian had some knowledge of the men, and the story of their sufferings so worked upon his pity that he promised to shelter them until such time as he could discover means of conveying them out of the country. To that end he hid them in one of his cellars, brought their food with his own hands, and generally used such precautions as he thought must avert suspicion. But on the morning of the 10th September he was arrested, his house searched, and the rebels discovered. The rest you know. Sir Julian was tried this afternoon with the two fugitives, and pays the penalty to-morrow. 'Tis the only result that could have been looked for. His best friends despaired from the outset--even Miss Marston."
"I had not thought of her," I broke in. "Poor girl!"
"Poor girl!" he repeated, gazing intently at the ceiling. "She was indeed so put back in her health, that her physician advised her instant removal to a less afflicting neighbourhood."
As he ended, he glanced sideways at me from under half-closed lids; but I chanced to be watching him, and our eyes crossed. It seemed to me that he coloured slightly, and sent his gaze travelling idly about the room, anywhere, in short, but in my direction, the while he hummed the refrain of a song.
"You mean she has deserted Julian?" I exclaimed.
"I have no recollection that I suggested that, or indeed anything whatsoever," he returned blandly. "As I mentioned to you before, I merely relate the facts."
"There is one fact," said I, after a moment's thought, "on which you have not touched."