'Do you mean that he confessed to it?'
'Confess?' she said, turning towards him. 'That is hardly the word. He told me of his own accord the moment he knew I had been engaged to—to—' She broke off at the name, and continued, 'and he spared himself in the telling far less than you have spared him.'
She spoke with a gentle dignity which Mallinson had never known in her before, and he felt that it raised a more solid barrier between them than even her refusal had done.
Fielding, meanwhile, waited with an uneasy conscience which no casuistry would lighten. He threw himself in Mallinson's way time after time in order to ascertain whether the latter had spoken. Mallinson let no word of the matter slip from him, and for the rest seemed utterly despondent. Fielding threw out a feeler at last.
'Of course,' he said, 'you would never repeat what I told you about
Gorley. I forgot to mention that.'
Mallinson flushed. 'Of course not,' he said awkwardly.
Fielding turned on him quickly. 'Then what made you tell Miss Le
Mesurier?'
Mallinson was too taken aback to deny the accusation. 'Oh, Miss Le
Mesurier,' he replied, 'knew already.'
'She knew? Who told her?'
'Drake.'