“Stop!” said Midwinter. “Don’t trust me with any secrets which are not your own. If you have given a promise, don’t trifle with it, even in speaking to such an intimate friend as I am.” He laid his hand gently and kindly on Allan’s shoulder. “I can’t help seeing that I have made you a little uncomfortable,” he went on. “I can’t help seeing that my question is not so easy a one to answer as I had hoped and supposed. Shall we wait a little? Shall we go upstairs and breakfast first?”
Allan was far too earnestly bent on presenting his conduct to his friend in the right aspect to heed Midwinter’s suggestion. He spoke eagerly on the instant, without moving from the window.
“My dear fellow, it’s a perfectly easy question to answer. Only”—he hesitated—“only it requires what I’m a bad hand at: it requires an explanation.”
“Do you mean,” asked Midwinter, more seriously, but not less gently than before, “that you must first justify yourself, and then answer my question?”
“That’s it!” said Allan, with an air of relief. “You’re hit the right nail on the head, just as usual.”
Midwinter’s face darkened for the first time. “I am sorry to hear it,” he said, his voice sinking low, and his eyes dropping to the ground as he spoke.
The rain was beginning to fall thickly. It swept across the garden, straight on the closed windows, and pattered heavily against the glass.
“Sorry!” repeated Allan. “My dear fellow, you haven’t heard the particulars yet. Wait till I explain the thing first.”
“You are a bad hand at explanations,” said Midwinter, repeating Allan’s own words. “Don’t place yourself at a disadvantage. Don’t explain it.”
Allan looked at him, in silent perplexity and surprise.