“Really, Grizel—­”

“Is it not true?”

There are no questions so offensive to the artistic nature as those that demand a Yes or No for answer.  “It is useless for me to say it is not true,” he replied haughtily, “for you won’t believe me.”

“Say it and I shall believe you,” said she.

Tommy tried standing on the other foot, but it was no help.  “I presume I may have reasons for wanting to see Corp that you are unacquainted with,” he said.

“Oh, I am sure of it!” replied Grizel, scornfully.  She had been hoping until now, but there was no more hope left in her.

“May I ask what it is that my oldest friend accuses me of?  Perhaps you don’t even believe that I was Captain Ure?”

“I am no longer sure of it.”

“How you read me, Grizel!  I could hoodwink the others, but never you.  I suppose it is because you have such an eye for the worst in anyone.”

It was not the first time he had said something of this kind to her; for he knew that she suspected herself of being too ready to find blemishes in others, to the neglect of their better qualities, and that this made her uneasy and also very sensitive to the charge.  To-day, however, her own imperfections did not matter to her; she was as nothing to herself just now, and scarcely felt his insinuations.

“I think you were Captain Ure,” she said slowly, “and I think you did it, but not as the boy imagines.”

“You may be quite sure,” he replied, “that I would not have done it had there been the least risk.  That, I flatter myself, is how you reason it out.”

“It does not explain,” she said, “why you kept the matter secret.”

“Thank you, Grizel!  Well, at least I have not boasted of it.”

“No, and that is what makes me——­” She paused.

“Go on,” said he, “though I can guess what agreeable thing you were going to say.”

But she said something else:  “You may have noticed that I took the boy aside and questioned him privately.”

“I little thought then, Grizel, that you suspected me of being an impostor.”

She clenched her hands again; it was all so hard to say, and yet she must say it!  “I did not.  I saw he believed his story.  I was asking him whether you had planned his coming with it to Mrs. McLean’s house at that dramatic moment.”

“You actually thought me capable of that!”

“It makes me horrid to myself,” she replied wofully, “but if I thought you had done that I could more readily believe the rest.”

“Very well, Grizel,” he said, “go on thinking the worst of me; I would not deprive you of that pleasure if I could.”

“Oh, cruel, cruel!” she could have replied; “you know it is no pleasure; you know it is a great pain.”  But she did not speak.

“I have already told you that the boy’s story is true,” he said, “and now you ask me why I did not shout it from the housetops myself.  Perhaps it was for your sake, Grizel; perhaps it was to save you the distress of knowing that in a momentary impulse I could so far forget myself as to act the part of a man.”