"Tell me, my friend, one thing." Dare had evidently been turning over something in his mind. "This poor unfortunate, this Stephens, why did he not tell you all this the first time you went to see him in the afternoon?"
"He did."
"What?" said Dare, looking hard at him. "He did, and you only tell me this morning! You let me go all through the night first. Why was this?"
Charles did not answer.
"I ask one thing more," continued Dare. "Did you divine two nights ago, from what I said in a moment of confidence, that Miss Deyncourt was the—the—"
"Of course I did," said Charles, sharply. "You made it sufficiently obvious."
"Ah!" said Dare. "Ah!" and he shut his eyes and nodded his head several times.
"Anything more you would like to know?" asked Charles, inattentive and impatient, mainly occupied in trying to hide the nameless exasperation which invariably seized him when he looked at Dare, and to stifle the contemptuous voice which always whispered as he did so, "And you have given up Ruth to him—to him!"
"No, no, no!" said Dare, shaking his head gently, and regarding him the while with infinite interest through his half-closed eyelids.
The dog-cart was coming round, and Charles hastily turned from him, and, getting in, drove quickly away. Whatever Dare said or did seemed to set his teeth on edge, and he lashed up the horse till he was out of sight of the house.