I laughed.
“The criminal reserves his defence. But it’s most interesting, Padre, most interesting, as Mrs. Drage says. If I may, I’d like to come and see that manuscript.”
“I shall be only too delighted,” he murmured with old-fashioned courtesy. “Whenever you like.”
And then the conversation turned on things parochial until he rose to go. The others had still not returned, and for a while we two sat on talking as the spirit moved us in the darkening room. At last the servants appeared to draw the curtains, and it was then that we heard Jack and Bill in the hall.
I don’t know what made me make the remark; it seemed to come without my volition.
“If I were you, Phyllis,” I said, “I don’t think I’d tell the story of the dining-room to Bill.”
She looked at me curiously.
“Why not?”
“I don’t know—but I wouldn’t.” In the brightly lit room his fears of the morning seemed ridiculous; yet, as I say, I don’t know what made me make the remark.
“All right; I won’t,” she said gravely. “Do you think——”