“Tell you—now?” said Hugh, recollecting himself. “No, no, impossible.”
“You can’t leave me in such a state of conjecture. Here, it’s quite fine and sunny now. Let us stop by this stile, and tell me all about it.”
As he spoke Arthur perched himself on the stone step of the stile, while Hugh leaned against the wall beside him. The white masses of cloud torn in every direction rolled rapidly away, showing great wells of blue between them. Every stone and puddle shone and sparkled in the sunshine; sharp peaks, and large, round masses of rock came one by one into view.
In this unfamiliar scene, to the last person and at the last moment that he could possibly have anticipated, Hugh began to tell his story. Arthur listened with a few well-timed questions, till Hugh spoke of “trying to convince Jem,” when he could not repress a laugh.
“Jem in the seat of judgment!”
Hugh laughed too, and went on, more comfortably:
“He said nothing I did not know before. I meant to carry it through. I could have done so.”
“Then you did not come to an explanation with her?”
“Yes, I did. I thought then I had found out the secret of life,” said Hugh, with an intensity of feeling, which Arthur could well sympathise with.
“But what on earth upset it all?”