The quiet, interrogative tone seemed to Barron an impertinence. With a suddenly heightened colour he struck straight—violently—for the heart of the thing.
"She told me a lamentable story—and she was led to tell it me by seeing—and identifying—yourself—as you were standing with a lady in the road outside the cottage."
"Identifying me?" repeated Meynell, with a slight accent of astonishment.
"That I think is hardly possible. For Judith Sabin had never seen me."
"You were not perhaps aware of it—but she had seen you."
Meynell shook his head.
"She was mistaken—or you are. However, that doesn't matter. I gather you wish to consult me about something that Judith Sabin communicated to you?"
"I do. But the story she told me turns very closely on her identification of yourself; and therefore it does matter," said Barron, with emphasis.
A puzzled look passed again over Meynell's face. But he said nothing. His attitude, coldly expectant, demanded the story.
Barron told it—once more. He repeated Judith Sabin's narrative in the straightened, rearranged form he had now given to it, postponing, however, any further mention of Meynell's relation to it till a last dramatic moment.
He did not find his task so easy on this occasion. There was something in the personality of the man sitting opposite to him which seemed to make a narrative that had passed muster elsewhere sound here a mere vulgar impertinence, the wanton intrusion of a common man on things sacredly and justly covered from sight.