"Of course I know," Dudley broke out again vehemently, "that thousands of men would treat the whole affair as a joke; would be glad to find that the woman they loved had money and position, after all; but I cared for Miss Maclean on a plane above that. It drives me mad to think how she sat looking at me with those honest eyes, listening to my confessions, and playing her pretty little comedy all the time."
Mr Reynolds waited in vain for Dudley to go on before he spoke.
"I cannot imagine," he said at last, "why you did not ask her to explain herself."
Dudley bit his lip. "If Miss Maclean had forged a cheque," he said, "I should have asked her to explain herself. It seems to me that the one thing in life of which no explanation is possible, in a difference of opinion as to what is due to friendship—or love."
"Did it never occur to you that Miss Maclean's cousin might have bound her over not to tell any one that she was a medical student?"
There was a pause.
"Why should she?" Dudley asked harshly.
"Why she did it I presume was best known to herself—though, considering the kind of person she seems to have been, it does not strike me as particularly surprising; but one thing I am in a position to say unhesitatingly, and that is, that she did do it."
Another long pause.
"Even if she did," Dudley said, "what was a trumpery promise like that between her and me, if she loved me?"