For a moment Anstice's fingers faltered in their task, and the girl's heart missed a beat as she wondered whether she had said too much.
Then:
"Miss Wayne"—Anstice's voice reassured her even while it filled her with a kind of wondering foreboding—"I should never find any impertinence in any interest you might be kind enough to express. I have suffered—bitterly—and the worst of my suffering lies in the fact that others—one other at least besides myself—were involved in the ill I unwittingly wrought."
Again her answer surprised him by the depth of comprehension it conveyed.
"That, too, I can understand," said Iris gently. "I have often tried to imagine how one must feel when one has unknowingly harmed another person; and it has always seemed to me that one would feel as one does when one has spoken unkindly, or impatiently, at least, to a child."
For a second Anstice busied himself in bandaging the slim wrist he held. Then, without looking up, he said:
"You have thought more deeply than many girls of your age, Miss Wayne. I wonder if you would extend your pity to me if you knew the nature of my particular tragedy."
A sudden spatter of rain against the window-pane made them both look up in surprise; and in a lighter tone Anstice said:
"A sharp shower, I see. I've finished my work, you'll be glad to hear, but I think it will be wiser to wait here till the rain's over. Will your cycle take any harm?"
"Oh, no, it can be dried at home," said Iris rather absently; and both of them were too much preoccupied to expend any of their talked-of sympathy on the overgrown youth patiently guarding the motor by the roadside.