I never felt so afraid of Mr. Hamilton before.  I was wondering what I should say to him, and hoping that he had not noticed my nervousness, when he startled me excessively by saying,—­

’What makes you look so odd this evening?  You are not a bit yourself, Miss Garston.  Come!  I shall expect you to confess.  Mrs. Maberley is an old friend of mine, and I am very much attached to her.  I should like to know what you and she have been talking about?’

It was too dark for Mr. Hamilton to see my face, so I answered a little flippantly,—­

’I daresay you would like to know.  Women are certainly not much more curious than men, after all.’

‘Oh, as to that, I am not a bit curious,’ was the contradictory answer.  ’But all the same I intend to know.  So you may as well make a clean breast of it.’

‘But—­but you have no right to be so inquisitive, Mr. Hamilton.’

’Again I say I am not inquisitive, but I mean to know this.  Mrs. Maberley had been crying.  I could see the tears in her eyes.  You looked inclined to cry too, Miss Garston.  Now,’—­after a moment’s hesitation, as though he found speech rather difficult,—­’I know the dear old lady has only one fault.  She is rather too fond of gossiping about her neighbours, though she does it in the kindest manner.  May I ask if her talk this evening at all related to a family not a hundred miles away from Maplehurst?’

His voice sounded hard and satirical in the darkness.  ’I wish you would not ask me such a question, Mr. Hamilton,’ I returned, much distressed.  ‘It was not my fault:  I did not wish—­’ But he interrupted me.

’Of course; I knew it.  When am I ever deceived by a face or manner?  Not by yours, certainly.  So my good old friend told you about that miserable affair.  I wish she had held her tongue a little longer.  I wish—­’

But I burst out, full of remorse,—­

’Oh, Mr. Hamilton, I am so sorry!  I have no right to know, but indeed I was hardly to blame.’

‘Who says you are to blame?’ he returned, so harshly that I remained silent:  ’it is no fault of yours if people will not be silent.  But all the same I am sorry that you know; your opinion of me is quite changed now, eh?  You think me a hard-hearted taskmaster of a brother.  Well, it does not matter:  Gladys would have made you believe that in time.’

His voice was so full of concentrated bitterness that I longed to say something consoling; in his own fashion he had been kind to me, and I did not wish to misjudge him.

’I know your sister Gladys sufficiently to be sure that she will never act ungenerously by her brother,’ I returned hotly.  ’Mr. Hamilton, you need not say such things:  it is not for me to judge.’