"Sophy," he said, "with the dilemma comes generally a way of escape for the imaginative." (How strange! he was paraphrasing the very quotation that Father Raphael had made to her that morning. She listened breathlessly.) "I confess frankly that I would not submit for a moment to this sanatorium idea. I know myself too well. I should enter it a temporary invalid and leave it a confirmed lunatic." (This phrase pleased him very much, especially when he saw by her expression that it had impressed her.) "I am not of the stuff from which 'good patients' are made. I should probably strangle my attendants and take French leave through a window. But"—he looked at her consideringly—"I am perfectly willing to put myself in your hands, and Gaynor's—you have talked with Gaynor, I suppose?"
He put this last question casually but with shrewd intent. Sophy's caution was at once alert. She had determined that he should have no least cause of anger against Gaynor.
"It was hard to get Gaynor to say anything, Cecil. He is so loyal. Only when the doctor had told me everything, did he so much as admit, even by a look, that there was—was anything of this kind. I had to press him hard, Cecil, for the barest facts. It was evidently real suffering for him to answer me. He had to answer me, you know. His very affection for you made him do that, when—when he saw how much I wanted to help you, too—that I was not—judging."
Chesney smiled rather drily, closing his eyes. "I see that your feeling towards Gaynor has suffered a 'sea change,'" he said. "There's something 'rare and strange' about it now."
"No, Cecil," she said warmly. "How could it be strange that I feel grateful and appreciative towards a man who has been so faithful to you?"
"'Il y a des fagots et des fagots,'" he murmured languidly. "There is one glory of the moon of faithfulness and another of the sun."
"How do you mean, Cecil?" She felt suddenly very anxious.
"Oh, nothing. Merely that you and Gaynor are the sun and moon in the heavens of loyalty."
"I'm glad that you're not vexed with the poor fellow because—because he didn't lie," she ventured gently.
"Oh, no ... no ..." he moved his hand, dismissing the subject. "'Faithful are the wounds of a friend.'"