To Merton, Blake displayed himself in a new light.  He said that he remembered little of what occurred after he was found at the foot of the cliff.  Probably he was snappish and selfish; he was suffering very much.  His head, indeed, was still bound up, and his face showed how he had suffered.  Merton shook hands with him, and said that he hoped Blake would forget his own behaviour, for which he was sincerely sorry.

‘Oh, the chaff?’ said Blake.  ’Never mind, I dare say I played the fool.  I have been thinking, when my brain would give me leave, as I lay in bed.  Merton, you are a trifle my senior, and you know the world much better.  I have lived in a writing and painting set, where we talked nonsense till it went to our heads, and we half believed it.  And, to tell you the truth, the presence of women always sets me off.  I am a humbug; I do not know Gaelic, but I mean to work away at my drama for all that.  This kind of shock against the realities of life sobers a fellow.’

Blake spoke simply, in an unaffected, manly way.

‘Semel in saninivimus omnes!’ said Merton.

‘Nec lusisse pudet!’ said Blake, ’and the rest of it.  I know there’s a parallel in the Greek Anthology, somewhere.  I’ll go and get my copy.’

He went into the observatory (they had been sitting on a garden seat outside), and Merton thought to himself: 

’He is not such a bad fellow.  Not many of your young poets know anything but French.’

Blake seemed to have some difficulty in finding his Anthology.  At last he came out with rather a ‘carried’ look, as the Scots say, rather excited.

‘Here it is,’ he said, and handed Merton the little volume, of a Tauchnitz edition, open at the right page.  Merton read the epigram.  ‘Very neat and good,’ he said.

‘Now, Merton,’ said Blake, ’it is not usual, is it, for ministers of the Anglican sect to play the spy?’

‘What in the world do you mean?’ asked Merton.  ’Oh, I guess, the Rev. Mr. Williams!  Were you not told that his cure of souls is in Scotland Yard?  I ought to have told you, I thought our host would have done so.  What was the holy man doing?’

‘I was not told,’ said Blake, ’I suppose Mr. Macrae was too busy.  So I was rather surprised, when I went into my room for my book, to find the clergyman examining my things and taking books out of one of my book boxes.’

‘Good heavens!’ exclaimed Merton.  ‘What did you do?’

’I locked the door of the room, and handed Mr. Williams the key of my despatch box.  “I have a few private trifles there,” I said, “the key may save you trouble.”  Then I sat down and wrote a note to Mr. Macrae, and rang the bell and asked the servant to carry the note to his master.  Mr. Macrae came, and I explained the situation and asked him to be kind enough to order the motor, if he could spare it, or anything to carry me to the nearest inn.’