At this moment Arthur Agar gave a strange little cackling laugh, which drew the general attention towards him. He was looking at his half-brother, with a glitter in his usually soft and peaceful eyes.
“There are a good many things which he will have to explain.”
“Yes,” answered Jem. “That is why we have brought him here.”
It fell to Arthur Agar's lot to forge the second link.
“When,” he asked Jem, “did he know that you had got back to safety and civilisation?”
“Two months ago, by telegram.”
The half-brothers turned with one accord towards Seymour Michael, who stood trying to conceal the quiver of his lips.
“He promised,” said Arthur Agar, “to tell me at once when he received news of your safety.”
It was singular that Seymour Michael should give way at that moment to a little shrinking movement of fear—back and away, not from Jem, who towered huge and powerful above him, but from the frail and delicate younger brother. Mark Ruthine, who was standing behind, saw the movement and wondered at it. For it would appear that, of all his judges, Seymour Michael feared the weakest most.
And so the second link was welded on to the first, while only Anna Agar knew the motive that had prompted Michael to suppress the news. She divined that it was spite towards herself, and for once in her life, with that intuition which only comes at supreme moments, she had the wisdom to bide her time.