Clarice stood still; and he became possessed with a queer longing that she would move again, forwards, within the focus of the firelight.  However, she spoke from where she stood.

‘You have seen my father.’

Instinctively Drake walked to the fireplace, but she did not follow.

‘I have just left him,’ he replied.  ’He told me what the question was which you wished me to answer.’

‘And forbade you to answer it, I suppose?’

‘No.  He left the choice to me.’

‘Well?’ she asked.

‘I mean to answer it to the full,’ he said.  ’I was not aware till a moment ago that you had been engaged to Gorley.’  Then he hesitated.  Clarice was still standing in the shadow, and his desire that she should move out of it and within the circle of light grew upon him until it seemed almost as though the sight of her face and the knowledge of how she was receiving the history of the incident were necessary conditions of its narration.

‘I suppose that is the reason,’ he went on, ’which made you ask me here at first.  Why did you never put the question before?’

‘Why?’ repeated Clarice slowly, as if she was putting the question to herself.  Then she moved slowly towards the fireplace and seated herself by the side of it, bent forwards towards its glow, her elbows upon her knees, her hands propping her chin.  Drake gave a sigh of relief, and Clarice glanced at him in surprise, and turned again to the fire.  ’Tell me your story,’ she said, and left his question unanswered.

Drake began; but now that his wish was accomplished, of a sudden all the reality seemed to fade out of the tragic events he was to recount.  His consciousness became in some queer way centred upon the girl who was listening, to the exclusion of the subject she was listening to.  He was intensely conscious of her face, of its changing expressions, of the ebb and flow of the blood from time to time flushing her cheeks and temples, and of the vivid play of lights and shadows upon them as the flames danced and sank on the hearth.  He noticed, too, with an observation new to him, and quite involuntary, the details of the room in which he stood, the white panelling of the walls, the engravings in their frames, the china ranged upon a ledge near to the ceiling.  Of these things his mind took impressions with the minuteness almost of a camera.  They were real to him at this moment, because they formed the framework and setting of the girl’s face and figure.

But Gorley’s crime and his expiation of it became by contrast as remote to his apprehension in point of all connection with Clarice as they were in point of locality.  He could not realise them to himself as events which had actually happened and in which he had played a part, and he spoke in the toneless voice of one who relates a fable of which, through frequent repetition, he is tired.  Instinctively, in order to make the truth of his story palpable,