grew tired of him
and turned to Knight; but he did not like to advance the statement now,
or even to think the thought. To fancy otherwise accorded better with
the hope to which Knight's estrangement had given birth: that love for
his friend was not the direct cause, but a result of her suspension of
love for himself.

'Such a matter must not be allowed to breed discord between us,' Knight
returned, relapsing into a manner which concealed all his true feeling,
as if confidence now was intolerable. 'I do see that your reticence
towards me in the vault may have been dictated by prudential
considerations.' He concluded artificially, 'It was a strange thing
altogether; but not of much importance, I suppose, at this distance of
time; and it does not concern me now, though I don't mind hearing your
story.'

These words from Knight, uttered with such an air of renunciation and
apparent indifference, prompted Smith to speak on--perhaps with a
little complacency--of his old secret engagement to Elfride. He told
the details of its origin, and the peremptory words and actions of her
father to extinguish their love.

Knight persevered in the tone and manner of a disinterested outsider.
It had become more than ever imperative to screen his emotions from
Stephen's eye; the young man would otherwise be less frank, and their
meeting would be again embittered. What was the use of untoward candour?

Stephen had now arrived at the point in his ingenuous narrative where
he left the vicarage because of her father's manner. Knight's interest
increased. Their love seemed so innocent and childlike thus far.

'It is a nice point in casuistry,' he observed, 'to decide whether you
were culpable or not in not telling Swancourt that your friends were
parishioners of his. It was only human nature to hold your tongue under
the circumstances. Well, what was the result of your dismissal by him?'

'That we agreed to be secretly faithful. And to insure this we thought
we would marry.'

Knight's suspense and agitation rose higher when Stephen entered upon
this phase of the subject.

'Do you mind telling on?' he said, steadying his manner of speech.

'Oh, not at all.'

Then Stephen gave in full the particulars of the meeting with Elfride at
the railway station; the necessity they were under of going to London,
unless the ceremony were to be postponed. The long journey of the
afternoon and evening; her timidity and revulsion of feeling; its
cul