Harry gave him one dumb, appealing glance, and met eyes which were grave but not unkind, firm and deeply interested. He had the impression that they had long been watching him.
"Yes, I have more—I have more," he said, with agitation, "and it is horribly painful! Dr. Armytage, I have two great friends—or so I think—my uncle, and this Geoffrey Langham, a fellow of my own age or thereabouts. This afternoon, to my uncle's face, though I am bound to say he would have preferred to tell me privately, Geoffrey made horrible insinuations—accusations. He said that Uncle Francis had long been my enemy; that he had tried to prevent my engagement; that he had failed there, and that in this affair, for instance, my uncle had intentionally—had intentionally——" and a strangling knot tied itself in his throat, choking utterance.
The doctor pushed the water-bottle gently a little closer to Harry, and he poured himself out some and drank it, unconscious that any suggestion had been made to him.
"Then there was an awful scene," he went on. "My uncle was nearly off his head, I believe, with remorse and horror for those words which had so nearly sent me to my death, and this was aggravated, I must suppose, by black, ungovernable rage against Geoffrey. I felt that I had never seen an angry man before. He refused to stay another night in the house with him; he asked me continually which of them it was who should go. He could not, of that I was convinced, in that state, and I sent Geoff off. Besides, I can not—simply I can not—believe in Geoff's accusations. It is flatly impossible that Uncle Francis should be guilty of the least intention which Geoff attributed to him. Do I not know him? There must be some other explanation. And if you want to know what my other explanation is, it has stood in front of you at dinner. It was the Luck: fire and frost and rain—the ice house, the gun, the sluice. Oh, it has happened once before like that."
"Yes, Mr. Francis told me," said the doctor, still looking very intently at him.
Harry flicked the ash off his cigarette.
"Here am I, then," he said. "Of my two best friends, one lies upstairs; the other, God knows if I shall ever see the other again! I have to tell him whether I believe what he said. And I can not believe it. It is monstrous; he is monstrous to have thought it. Yet I see why he thought it; to any one not believing in the Luck, there was no other explanation. There are other things too. I need not trouble you with them. He came to the conclusion, for instance, that my uncle wished to stop my engagement—prevent it rather, for I was not engaged then. They were specious—good Lord! they were specious enough. But I have been considering them all, and I simply can not believe them. It is not that I wilfully shut my eyes; I hold them open with pincers and chisels, so to speak, but I am unable—that is clear—to believe anything of this. How could it be possible? God does not allow such things, I tell you."
"That is your verdict, then. You believe nothing against your uncle," said the other with an intonation absolutely colourless.
"I can not."