'That man,' I said, 'was Arthur Clyde.'
'Ah!' The sound escaped him without his knowing it. A minute later he asked, 'What was the ground of quarrel?'
I told him then the story of Clyde's meeting with Grammont, and of Arthur's passion afterwards, and of our next encounter with Grammont at the end of the Chiaja on the day of the murder.
'And you are sacrificing yourself that Clyde may escape, trusting to chances to clear yourself?'
I answered nothing.
'What is your motive in all this?' he asked me.
What right had I to withhold it, then? what right to be ashamed of the truth? Yet I paused.
'It is not friendship for Clyde. What is the motive?'
'I was silent because I waited here for events to decide what I could not decide for myself.'
'And what was that?'