"What can Mr. Blake know about it?" said Florian.
"I suppose he means to ask about you. It is quite clear, Florian, that no one in the house believes you."
"Peter does."
"You mean that Peter thinks you are right to stand to the lie now you have told it. More shame for Peter if he does."
"You wouldn't have a fellow go and put himself out of favour with all the boys through the country? There is a horrible man that wears a mask—" Then he remembered, and stopped himself. He was on closer terms with Ada than with Edith, but not on terms so close as to justify his whispering a word about the man in the mask.
"Where did you see the man in the mask?" asked Ada. "Who is the man in the mask?"
"I don't know."
"But you know where you saw him. You must know that. What did the man in the mask say to you?"
"I am not going to tell you anything about him," said the boy. "I am not going to have my secrets got out of me in that way. It isn't honest. Nobody but a Protestant would do it." So saying Florian left his sister, with the tale of the man in the mask only half told.