‘Stay, stay,’ cries Mr. Barry suddenly. ‘We must get to the end of this. If I have wronged you, Wyndham, I regret it with all my heart; but there has been some talk here, and Susan—she is very young, a mere child. I could not stand that. You tell me there is nothing to be condemned in all this business—that she, this girl in there, is only your tenant. But landlords do not visit their tenants except on compulsion, so far as I know; and you—what has brought you here to-day?’
‘Just that,’ says Wyndham, who is still at white heat—‘compulsion. If you would condescend’—angrily—‘to listen to my explanation, I might, perhaps, make you understand.’
‘I shall be only too glad to listen,’ says Mr. Barry, with dignity.
‘But here—how can I explain here?’ says Wyndham, glancing round at the open road and the walls. ‘Walls have ears.’
But Mr. Barry does not budge, and Wyndham gives way to rather sardonic laughter.
‘I suppose,’ says he, ‘you would not let me under your roof until this is perfectly clear?’
The Rector still remains immovable.
‘The roof of heaven is above us always,’ returns he. Whereupon Wyndham, who has sympathy with determination, laughs again, but more naturally this time, and forthwith tells him the whole story of his acquaintance with Ella from that first strange night until to-day.
‘Bless me!’ says the Rector, when the recital is at an end. He strokes his clean-shaven chin thoughtfully. ‘What an extraordinary tale!’
‘Not too extraordinary to be believed, I hope?’—stiffly.