“No.” Lisle waited, watching his companion in an intent fashion.
Nasmyth hesitated.
“Then, considering everything, mightn’t it be better to waste no time, and push straight on?”
“And leave the work that brought me here—I believe that brought us both here—undone?”
“You’ll forgive me if I don’t express myself very fortunately. What I feel is this—Gladwyne’s story is a tragic one, but it’s twelve months old. In a way, it’s forgotten; the wounds it made have healed.”
“Is such a man as the one you have described forgotten in a year?” Lisle asked with a hardening expression.
Nasmyth, being a man of simple and, for the most part, wholesome ideas, was in a quandary. His feelings were generous, but he shrank from putting them into words. Moreover he was just and was not wholly convinced that the course he wished to recommend was right.
“Well,” he contended, “there are faithful hearts that never quite forget—with them the scar remains; but it’s fortunate that the first keen pain does not last. Is it decent—I almost think that’s the right word—to reopen the wound?”
He paused and spread out one hand as if in expostulation.
“Your late comrade has gone beyond your help; you told me he had left no relatives; and you have only yourself to consider. Can you do any good by bringing this sorrowful tale of disaster up again?”