“Man! man! it isn't your roof I am refusing. I want to go; I'd give anything to go. If it were anywhere except where it is, I'd go fast enough. Now do you understand? If—if Shotover House and Shotover people were not next door to the Fells, I'd go. Now do you understand?”
Plank said: “I don't know whether I understand. If you mean Quarrier, he's on his way here, and he'll have business to keep him here for the next few months, I assure you. But”—he looked very gravely across at Siward—“if you don't mean Quarrier—” He hesitated, ill at ease under the expressionless scrutiny of the other.
“Do you know what's the matter with me, Plank?” he asked at length.
“I think so.”
“I have wondered. I wonder now how much you know.”
“Very little, Siward.”
“How much?”
Plank looked up, hesitated, and shook his head: “One infers from what one hears.”
“Infers what?”
“The truth, I suppose,” replied Plank simply.