This last assertion dropped as a bomb between Lessingham and myself.
"By the way," the girl presently said, as our awkward silence continued, "has either of you happened to read, or re-read, Meredith's 'Egoist' just lately?"
Lessingham stopped short, and in the light of a neighbouring gas-lamp I saw his handsome, boyish face look troubled to the point of physical pain.
"What on earth are you driving at? What do you mean, Arabella—that Pogson is a plagiarist?"
"Don't eat me, Harry dearest, if I incline to use a shorter, commoner expression."
"A thief?"
"An unconscious one, no doubt," she threw off quickly, fearful of explosions, possibly, in her turn. "He may have been betrayed by his own extraordinary memory."
"But this is horrible, horrible," Lessingham cried. "All the names, though, were different."
Arabella appeared to have overcome her fear of explosions. Her charming eyes again danced.
"Exactly," she said. "That was the peculiar part of it, the thing which riveted my attention. He had—I mean the names of the characters and places were different—were altered, changed."