Narramore was listening with eagerness, his lips parted, and a growing hope in his eyes.

“There never was anything serious between you?”

“On her side, never for a moment.  I pursued and pestered her, that was all.”

“Do you mind telling me who the girl was that I saw you with at Dudley?”

“A friend of Miss Madeley’s, over here from London on a holiday.  I have tried to make use of her—­to get her influence on my side ——­”

Narramore sprang from the corner of the table on which he had been sitting.

“Why couldn’t she hold her tongue!  That’s just like a woman, to keep a thing quiet when she ought to speak of it, and bring it out when she had far better say nothing.  I feel as if I had treated you badly, Hilliard.  And the way you take it—­I’d rather you eased your mind by swearing at me.”

“I could swear hard enough.  I could grip you by the throat and jump on you——­”

“No, I’m hanged if you could!” He forced a laugh.  “And I shouldn’t advise you to try.  Here, give me your hand instead.”  He seized it.  “We’re going to talk this over like two reasonable beings.  Does this girl know her own mind?  It seems to me from this letter that she wants to get rid of me.”

“You must find out whether she does or not.”

“Do you think she does?”

“I refuse to think about it at all.”

“You mean she isn’t worth troubling about?  Tell the truth, and be hanged to you!  Is she the kind of a girl a man may marry?”

“For all I know.”

“Do you suspect her?” Narramore urged fiercely.

“She’ll marry a rich man rather than a poor one—­that’s the worst I think of her.”

“What woman won’t?”

When question and answer had revolved about this point for another quarter of an hour, Hilliard brought the dialogue to an end.  He was clay-colour, and perspiration stood on his forehead.

“You must make her out without any more help from me.  I tell you the letter is all nonsense, and I can say no more.”

He moved towards the exit.

“One thing I must know, Hilliard—­Are you going to see her again?”

“Never—­if I can help it.”

“Can we be friends still?”

“If you never mention her name to me.”

Again they shook hands, eyes crossing in a smile of shamed hostility.  And the parting was for more than a twelvemonth.

Late in August, when Hilliard was thinking of a week’s rest in the country. after a spell of harder and more successful work than he had ever previously known, he received a letter from Patty Ringrose.