“Perfectly,” said Langholm, gently.

The lad lay gazing up at him with great eyes.  Langholm fancied their expression was one of incredulity.  Twilight was falling early with the rain; the casement was small, and further contracted by an overgrowth of creeper; those two great eyes seemed to shine the brighter through the dusk.  Langholm could not make his visit a very short one, after all.  He felt it would be cruel.

“What did you talk about, then?” he asked.

A small smile came with the answer, “You!”

“Me!  What on earth had you to say about me?”

“I heard all you had been doing.”

“Oh, that.”

“You know you didn’t tell me, that evening in town.”

“No, I was only beginning, then.”

It seemed some months ago—­more months since that very afternoon.

“Have you found out anything?”

Langholm hesitated.

“Yes.”

Why should he lie?

“Do you mean to say that you have any suspicion who it is?” Severino was on his elbow.

“More than a suspicion.  I am certain.  There can be no doubt about it.  A pure fluke gave me the clew, but every mortal thing fits it.”

Severino dropped back upon his pillow.  Langholm seemed glad to talk to him, to loosen his tongue, to unburden his heart ever so little.  And, indeed, he was glad.

“And what are you going to do about it?”

“That’s my difficulty.  She must be cleared before the world.  That is the first duty—­if it could be done without—­making bad almost worse!”

“Bad—­worse?  How could it, Langholm?”

No answer.

“Who do you say it is?”

No answer again.  Langholm had not bargained to say anything to anybody just yet.

Severino raised himself once more upon an elbow.

“I must know!” he said.

Langholm rose, laughing.

“I’ll tell you who I thought it was at first,” said he, heartily.  “I don’t mind telling you that, because it was so absurd; and I think you’ll be the first to laugh at it.  I was idiot enough to think it might be you, my poor, dear chap!”

“And you don’t think so still?” asked Severino, harshly.  He had not been the first to laugh.

“Of course I don’t, my dear fellow.”

“I wish you would sit down again.  That’s better.  So you know it is some one else?”

“So far as one can know anything.”

“And you are going to try to bring it home to this man?”

“I don’t know.  The police may save me the trouble.  I believe they are on the same scent at last.  Meanwhile, I have given him as fair a warning as a man could wish.”

Severino lay back yet again in silence and deep twilight.  His breath came quickly.  A shiver seemed to pass through the bed.

“You needn’t have done that,” he whispered at last.

“I thought it was the fair thing to do.”