It was Mr. Greatorex who disclosed what there was to tell. Bede received it ungraciously; that is, in spite of disbelieving mockery. Henry Ollivera was accustomed to these moods of his. The clergyman did not resent it openly; he simply stood with his deep eyes fixed watchingly on Bede's face, as if the steady gaze, the studied silence, carried their own reproof.
"I believe, if some wight came down on a voyage from the moon, and fed you with the most improbable fable ever invented by the erratic imagination of man, you would place credence in it," said Bede, turning sharply on Mr. Ollivera.
"Edmund Willett has not come from the moon," quietly spoke the clergyman.
"But Charles Willett--lost man!--is no better than a lunatic in his drinking bouts," retorted Bede.
"At any rate, he was neither a lunatic nor drunk today."
"His story does not hold water," pursued Bede. "Is it likely--is it possible, I should almost say,--that had he been the man with whom the appointment was held that afternoon, he would have kept the fact in until now?--and when so much stir and enquiry were made at the time?"
"Edmund Willett says it is just exactly the line of conduct his brother might have been expected to pursue," said Mr. Ollivera. "He was always of an ill-conditioned temper--morose, uncommunicative. That what Charles Willett says is perfectly true, I am as sure of as I am that I stand hers, You had better see him yourself, Bede."
"To what end?"
"That you may be also convinced."
"And if I were convinced?" questioned Bede, after a pause. "What then?"