Then Jem Agar spoke.
“I asked Mark Buthine,” he said, “to come ashore with me, because I had reason to suspect your good faith. I can't see now why you should have done this, but I suppose that people who are born liars, as Ruthine says you are, prefer lying to telling the truth. You are coming down now with Ruthine and myself to Stagholme. I shall tell the whole story as it happened, and then you will have to explain matters to the two ladies as best you can.”
A sudden unreasoning terror took possession of Seymour Michael. He knew that one of the ladies was Anna Agar, the woman who hated him almost as much as he deserved. He was afraid of her; for it is one consolation to the wronged to know that the wronger goes all through his life with a dull, unquenchable fear upon his heart. But this was not sufficient, this could not account for the mighty terror which clutched his soul at that moment, and he knew it. He felt that this was something beyond that—something which could not be reasoned away. It was a physical terror, one of those emotions which seem to attack the body independently of the soul, a terror striking the Man before it reaches the Mind. His limbs trembled; it was only by an effort that he kept his teeth clenched to prevent them from chattering.
“And,” said Jem Agar, “if I find that any harm has been done—if any one has suffered for this, I will give you the soundest thrashing you have ever had in your life.”
Both his hearers knew now who Dora Glynde was, what she was to him. He neither added to their knowledge nor sought to mislead. He was not, as we have said, de ceux qui s'expliquent.
“Come,” he added, and turning he led the way across the Hoe.
Seymour Michael followed quietly. He was cowed by the inward fear which would not be allayed, and the judicial calmness of these two men paralysed him. Once, in the train, he began explaining matters over again.
“We will hear all that at Stagholme,” said Jem sternly, and Mark Ruthine merely looked at him over the top of a newspaper which he was not reading.