"If you're right, the puzzle comes together piece by piece."
"Excepting the old man in the coffin—supposing that it was a man."
Endicott reflected; then was struck with an idea.
"It may be that the death of this old man put the cranky thought into Yeoland's head. If it was his kinsman that lies there instead of himself, all's smoothed out. What simpler way to clear Honor's road? This parade of evidence is made that there may be no doubt in any mind. A Yeoland dies and is buried in the tomb of his forefathers. But after all it wasn't our Yeoland."
"Did he mean to let this farce go on for ever?"
"No farce for him; yet, maybe, he got some solid joy out of it. A quick mind for all his vagabond, empty life. He saw the position, and reckoned that in fulness of time she might come to be a happy wife along with you. Then this old relative dies at the right moment and sets a spark to his imagination. No, I suppose we should never have known. His idea would be to keep his secret close hid for ever from those it concerned most—unless——"
He broke off and pursued his reflections in silence. Myles waited for him to speak again, but the blind man only resumed his knitting.
"He blotted himself clean out of life for love of Honor," Stapledon at length declared.
"That I believe. A strange, unlawful deed, yet 'tis a question whether the law has any punishment. To think of the immense confusion of human life if many graves yielded up their dead again!"
"And what is our course? Who can benefit or suffer if we state these things? There's such huge folly about it when you think of details that I feel as if it must all be a nightmare of Henry's."