"So that's what you think of me," he said slowly.
"Indeed it isn't," she answered quickly. "I didn't think it in the beginning and I don't want to do so now, but what was one to think?"
"It was your brother's behaviour that puzzled me," he said, "and still puzzles me. Don't you see I only want to be sure that he won't use what I told him?"
Lady Daphne looked at him curiously. Here was a man whose manners were perfect, who seemed to have the same sports and occupation of the kind of men she knew hinting that he had done things of whose consequence he was afraid. She supposed there were many temptations into which a man might fall, lapses of which he might repent and still go in fear of discovery.
"I don't wonder you were bewildered," she said presently, "and I understand far better than you how it was. Mr. Trent you need never be afraid that the man who was Private Smith will ever say a word to any living souls of what you said to him."
"How can I be certain?" he demanded. "You don't know the rewards that a man might gain for speaking the truth about me."
"Private William Smith and my brother Arthur are two different people."
He looked at her in astonishment. Was the weary chase, the long uncertainty to begin again? There was never a doubt in his mind but that what she told him was true even if it was hard to be believed.
"Then where is Private Smith?" he asked. "Where is the man who knows the real me?"
"At the castle," she said.