Hume was blushing like a schoolboy. He glanced miserably at Brett, but the barrister was still puffing artistic designs in big and little rings.
“Very well. My reason for concealment disappears now,” he blurted out, for the young man was both vexed and ashamed. “That wretched night, after she returned home, Helen thought she had behaved foolishly in creating a scene. She put on a cloak, changed her shoes, and slipped back again to Mrs. Eastham’s, where she met Alan just coming away. She implored him to make up the quarrel with me. He apologised for his conduct, and promised to do the same to me when we met. He explained that other matters had upset his temper that day, and he had momentarily yielded to an irritated belief that everything was against him. Helen watched him enter the park; she pretended that she was going in to Mrs. Eastham’s. She could see the lighted windows of the library, and she wondered why he did not go inside, but imagined that at the distance she might easily be mistaken. At last she ran off to the rectory. Again she lingered in the garden, devoutly wishing that all might be well between Alan and me. Then she became conscious that something unusual had taken place, owing to the lights and commotion. For a long time she was at a loss to conjecture what could have happened. At last, yielding to curiosity, she came back to the lodge. The gates were wide open. Mrs. Eastham’s dance was still in progress. She is not a timid girl, so she walked boldly up the avenue until she met Fergusson, the butler, who was then going to tell Mrs. Eastham. When she heard his story she was too shocked to credit it, and asked him to bring me. I came. By that time I was beginning to realise that I might be implicated in the affair, and I begged her to return home at once, alone. She did so. Subsequently she asked me not to refer to the escapade, for obvious reasons. It was a woman’s little secret, Brett, and I was compelled to keep it.”
“Anything else, Winter?” demanded the barrister, wrapped in a cloud of his own creation.
“That is all, sir, except the way in which I heard of Miss Layton’s meeting with Mr. Hume.”
“Not through Fergusson, eh?”
“Not a bit. The old chap is as close as wax. He seems to think that a Hume-Frazer must die a violent death outside that library window, and if the cause of the trouble is another Hume-Frazer, it is their own blooming business, and no other person’s. Most extraordinary old chap. Have you met him?”
“No. Indeed, I am only just beginning to hear the correct details of the story.”
Hume winced, but passed no remark.
“Well, my information came through an anonymous letter.”
“You don’t say so! How interesting! Have you got it?”