"And—?"
"Beyond that? I presume I must tell you, though I confess I'm in doubt...." He hesitated, weighing candor in the balance with discretion.
"But who are you for? Are you in George Calendar's pay?"
"Heaven forfend!"—piously. "My sole interest at the present moment is to unravel a most entrancing mystery—"
"Entitled 'Dorothy Calendar'! Of course. You've known her long?"
"Eight hours, I believe," he admitted gravely; "less than that, in fact."
"Miss Calendar's interests will not suffer through anything you may tell me."
"Whether they will or no, I see I must swing a looser tongue, or you'll be showing me the door."
The woman shook her head, amused, "Not until," she told him significantly.
"Very well, then." And he launched into an abridged narrative of the night's events, as he understood them, touching lightly on his own circumstances, the real poverty which had brought him back to Craven Street by way of Frognall. "And there you have it all, Mrs. Hallam."