Harkness nodded again.
"Worth doing a lot for. Well, I'll put the whole story to you—let you have it all. We've got nearly three-quarters of an hour. I can tell you most of it in that time, and then you can make up your mind. If, when I've told you everything, you decide to have nothing whatever to do with it, that's all right. There's no obligation on you at all, of course. But if you did help me, being in the house at that very time, it would make the whole difference. My God, yes!" he ended with a sigh of eagerness, staring at Harkness.
Harkness sat there, thinking only of the girl. His own personal history, the town, the dance, Crispin and his son, all these things had faded away from his mind; he saw only her—as she had been when turning her head for a moment she had spoken to him with such marvellous self-control.
He loved her just as she stood there granting him permission to help her. His own prayer was that it might not be long before he was allowed to help her again. He was recalled to the immediate moment by Dunbar's voice:
"You'll forgive me if I go back to the beginning of things—it's the only way really to explain. Have you ever heard of Polchester, a town in Glebeshire, north of this? There's a rather famous cathedral there."
"Yes," said Harkness, "I thought I might go there from here."
"Well," Dunbar went on, "out of Polchester about ten miles there's a village—Milton Haxt. I was born there and so was Hesther. Her name was Hesther Tobin, and she was the only daughter of the doctor of the place—she had two brothers younger than herself. We've known one another all our lives."
"Wait a moment," Harkness interrupted; "are you and she the same age?"
"No. I'm thirty, she's only twenty."
"You look younger than that, or you did this afternoon, I'm not so sure now." Indeed the boy seemed to have acquired some new weight and responsibility as he sat there.