They passed further down the gallery. She looked at him a little curiously.
"Is it my fancy," she asked, "or have you something on your mind? The note which reached you contained no ill news, I hope?"
"I don't know," he answered, with unexpected candour. "I have a great deal on my mind."
"I am so sorry," she murmured.
They had reached the further end of the gallery now. She sank into the window seat and made room for him by her side. For a moment he looked out across the park. In the moonless night the trees were like little dark blurs, the country rose and fell like a turbulent sea. And very close at hand, ominously close at hand as it seemed to him, a bright light from Richard Vont's cottage was burning steadily.
"Let me ask you a question," he begged a little abruptly. "Supposing that you had given your word of honour, solemnly, in return for a vital service rendered, to commit a dishonourable action; what should you do?"
"Well, that is rather a dilemma, isn't it?" she acknowledged. "To tell you the truth, I can't quite reconcile the circumstances. I can't, for instance, conceive your promising to do a dishonourable thing."
"At the time," he explained, "it did not seem dishonourable. At the time it seemed just an act of justice. Then circumstances changed, new considerations intervened, and the whole situation was altered."
"Is it a monetary matter?" she enquired, "one in which money would make any difference, I mean?"
He shook his head.