Arnold hurried forward to meet him.  Geoffrey stood still, poising himself on his stick, and let the other come up.

“Have you heard what has happened at the house?” asked Arnold.

He instinctively checked the next question as it rose to his lips.  There was a settled defiance in the expression of Geoffrey’s face, which Arnold was quite at a loss to understand.  He looked like a man who had made up his mind to confront any thing that could happen, and to contradict any body who spoke to him.

“Something seems to have annoyed you?” said Arnold.

“What’s up at the house?” returned Geoffrey, with his loudest voice and his hardest look.

“Miss Silvester has been at the house.”

“Who saw her?”

“Nobody but Blanche.”

“Well?”

“Well, she was miserably weak and ill, so ill that she fainted, poor thing, in the library.  Blanche brought her to.”

“And what then?”

“We were all at lunch at the time.  Blanche left the library, to speak privately to her uncle.  When she went back Miss Silvester was gone, and nothing has been seen of her since.”

“A row at the house?”

“Nobody knows of it at the house, except Blanche—­”

“And you?  And how many besides?”

“And Sir Patrick.  Nobody else.”

“Nobody else?  Any thing more?”

Arnold remembered his promise to keep the investigation then on foot a secret from every body.  Geoffrey’s manner made him—­unconsciously to himself—­readier than he might otherwise have been to consider Geoffrey as included in the general prohibition.

“Nothing more,” he answered.

Geoffrey dug the point of his stick deep into the soft, sandy ground.  He looked at the stick, then suddenly pulled it out of the ground and looked at Arnold.  “Good-afternoon!” he said, and went on his way again by himself.

Arnold followed, and stopped him.  For a moment the two men looked at each other without a word passing on either side.  Arnold spoke first.

“You’re out of humor, Geoffrey.  What has upset you in this way?  Have you and Miss Silvester missed each other?”

Geoffrey was silent.

“Have you seen her since she left Windygates?”

No reply.

“Do you know where Miss Silvester is now?”

Still no reply.  Still the same mutely-insolent defiance of look and manner.  Arnold’s dark color began to deepen.

“Why don’t you answer me?” he said.

“Because I have had enough of it.”

“Enough of what?”

“Enough of being worried about Miss Silvester.  Miss Silvester’s my business—­not yours.”

“Gently, Geoffrey!  Don’t forget that I have been mixed up in that business—­without seeking it myself.”

“There’s no fear of my forgetting.  You have cast it in my teeth often enough.”

“Cast it in your teeth?”