Fielding lit a cigarette and related the story.  At the end of it Mallinson lay back on the pillows, staring at the ceiling.  Once or twice Fielding spoke to him, but he did not hear.  He was not thinking:  the knowledge that the secret to be discovered was his to use was as a sense in him.  He felt it pulsing through his veins and throbbing at his heart.  Mrs. Willoughby was forgotten.  It had been after all but a fictitious fancy which he had conceived for her, a fancy fostered in the main as balm for his self-respect after his refusal by Clarice.

As soon as he was sufficiently recovered he called upon Miss Le Mesurier, confident that his hour and opportunity had come.  Drake, however, had reported to Clarice on the condition of Mallinson, and her sympathy had in consequence to a great extent evaporated.  Bronchitis was not of the ailments which spring from a broken heart, and she was inclined to hold it as a grievance against him that she had been so wastefully touched with pity.  Her sympathy disappeared altogether when with little circumlocution he broached the subject of the Boruwimi expedition, and dropped a mention of Mrs. Willoughby’s relative.  There was something at the back of it, he hinted.

Clarice wondered whence he had got his information, but made no effort to check him.  She stood looking out of the window while he retold her the story of Gorley’s death.  It became more unreal to her than ever; for while his account was correctly given, as Mrs. Willoughby had given it to Fielding, it lacked the uncompromising details which Drake himself had furnished.  Her recollection of these details made the man who had given them stand out in her thoughts.

‘It was a pitiful affair,’ Mallinson concluded, ’but I thought you ought to know.’

Clarice drew a finger down the frame of glass in front of her.

‘Mr. Drake thought so too,’ she said quietly.

‘Drake!’ exclaimed Mallinson, utterly bewildered.  ’Drake!  The man wouldn’t be such a—­’

‘He was though.’

‘Do you mean that he confessed to it?’

‘Confess?’ she said, turning towards him.  ’That is hardly the word.  He told me of his own accord the moment he knew I had been engaged to—­to—­’ She broke off at the name, and continued, ’and he spared himself in the telling far less than you have spared him.’

She spoke with a gentle dignity which Mallinson had never known in her before, and he felt that it raised a more solid barrier between them than even her refusal had done.

Fielding, meanwhile, waited with an uneasy conscience which no casuistry would lighten.  He threw himself in Mallinson’s way time after time in order to ascertain whether the latter had spoken.  Mallinson let no word of the matter slip from him, and for the rest seemed utterly despondent.  Fielding threw out a feeler at last.

‘Of course,’ he said, ’you would never repeat what I told you about Gorley.  I forgot to mention that.’