"I don't mind," said Arthur wearily, "but it's no use. No, it's nothing like that. I have done nothing I am ashamed of. I am not secretly married, nor have I committed forgery," with a very ghastly attempt at a smile.
"Then," said Philip, "is it something about your family. Have you found out that there's a strain of insanity in the Lingards perhaps? People exaggerate that kind of thing now-a-days. There's a touch of it in us all, I take it."
"No," said Arthur, again "my family's all right. I've no very near relations except my sister, but you know her, and you know all about us. We're not adventurers in any sense of the word."
"Far from it," agreed Philip warmly. Then for a moment or two he relapsed into silence. "Does your sister—does Lady West know about—about this mysterious affair?" he asked abruptly, after some pondering.
"Nothing whatever. I, of course, was bound by every consideration not to tell her—to tell no one anything till it was understood by—the Trevannions. And I had no reason for consulting her or—any friend," Arthur replied.
He spoke jerkily and with effort, as if he were putting force on himself to endure what yet he was convinced was absolutely useless torture.
But his words gave Keir a new opening, which he was quick to seize.
"That's just it," he exclaimed eagerly. "That's just where it strikes me you've gone wrong. You should have consulted some one—not myself, not your sister even; I don't say whom, but some one sensible and trustworthy. I believe your mind has got warped. You've been thinking over this trouble, whatever it is, till you can't see it rightly. You've exaggerated it out of all proportion, and you shouldn't trust your own morbid judgment."
Lingard did not answer. He stood motionless, his eyes fixed upon the ground. For an instant a wild hope dashed through Philip that at last he had made some impression. But as Arthur slowly raised his dim, worn eyes, and looked him in the face, it faded again, even before the young man spoke.
"To satisfy you, I will tell you this much. I have consulted one person—a man whom you would allow was trustworthy and wise and good. From him I have hidden nothing whatever, and he agrees with me that I have no choice—that duty points unmistakably to the course I am pursuing."