“I should like to know who told Harris about it,” I said. “I didn’t.”
“Didn’t you? Wasn’t he there that evening you told all the rest of us? To be sure he wasn’t. He must have heard the others speaking about it.”
“They all promised—that is, I begged them all—not to tell any one,” I said, with a groan.
“Yes, I remember your asking me that evening. It’s a great shame if the fellows have told Harris. But he may have heard some other way.”
“How could he?” said I.
“Well, I suppose it was all in the papers at the time,” said Hawkesbury.
“Harris would hardly be in the habit of reading newspapers thirteen or fourteen years old,” I said, bitterly.
“Was it so long ago as that?” said Hawkesbury. “No, it hardly does seem likely. Somebody must have told him.”
“It was a blackguard thing of him to do,” I said, “and I’ll take good care never to speak to him again.”
“Well, you’d be quite justified in cutting him dead,” replied Hawkesbury. “I’d do the same if he’d done as much to a friend of mine.”