"And I'm like to again. Not pleasantly neither. I've thought how I'd found something on your tongue long ago; but I've kept dumb, hoping I was mistaken. To-night, my son, there's no more room for doubt."
"This is a mystery—quite uncanny."
"I don't know. 'Tis very unfortunate—very, but a fact; and you've got to face it."
"Read the riddle to me," said Stapledon slowly. His voice sounded anxious under an assumption of amusement.
"Do you remember after supper how Pinsent asked you whether you would stop on here when his mistress was married? You answered that the Lord knew what you were going to do. Now it was clean out of your character to answer so."
"I hope it was; I hope so indeed. I was sorry the moment afterwards."
"You couldn't help yourself. You were not thinking of your answer to the question, but the much more important thing suggested by the question. That's what made you so short: the thought of Honor's marriage."
"I own it," confessed the other. A silence fell; then Mark spoke again more gravely.
"Myles, you must clear out of here. I'm blind and even I know it. How much more such as can see—you yourself, for instance—and Honor—and Christopher Yeoland."
Stapledon's brow flushed and his jaw set hard. He looked at the sightless face before him, and spoke hurriedly.