“You have not seen him since you left the house?”

“Darkly:  clear enough:  not unlike the hand of destiny—­through a veil.  He offered himself to Miss Dale last night, about between the witching hours of twelve and one.”

“Miss Dale . . .”

“Would she other?  Could she?  The poor lady has languished beyond a decade.  She’s love in the feminine person.”

“Are you speaking seriously, Colonel De Craye?”

“Would I dare to trifle with you, Miss Middleton?”

“I have reason to know it cannot be.”

“If I have a head, it is a fresh and blooming truth.  And more—­I stake my vanity on it!”

“Let me go to her.”  She stepped.

“Consider,” said he.

“Miss Dale and I are excellent friends.  It would not seem indelicate to her.  She has a kind of regard for me, through Crossjay.—­Oh, can it be?  There must be some delusion.  You have seen—­you wish to be of service to me; you may too easily be deceived.  Last night?—­he last night . . .?  And this morning!”

“’Tis not the first time our friend has played the trick, Miss Middleton.”

“But this is incredible, that last night . . . and this morning, in my father’s presence, he presses! . . .  You have seen Miss Dale?  Everything is possible of him:  they were together, I know.  Colonel De Craye, I have not the slightest chance of concealment with you.  I think I felt that when I first saw you.  Will you let me hear why you are so certain?”

“Miss Middleton, when I first had the honour of looking on you, it was in a posture that necessitated my looking up, and morally so it has been since.  I conceived that Willoughby had won the greatest prize of earth.  And next I was led to the conclusion that he had won it to lose it.  Whether he much cares, is the mystery I haven’t leisure to fathom.  Himself is the principal consideration with himself, and ever was.”

“You discovered it!” said Clara.

“He uncovered it,” said De Craye.  “The miracle was, that the world wouldn’t see.  But the world is a piggy-wiggy world for the wealthy fellow who fills a trough for it, and that he has always very sagaciously done.  Only women besides myself have detected him.  I have never exposed him; I have been an observer pure and simple; and because I apprehended another catastrophe—­making something like the fourth, to my knowledge, one being public . . .”

“You knew Miss Durham?”

“And Harry Oxford too.  And they’re a pair as happy as blackbirds in a cherry-tree, in a summer sunrise, with the owner of the garden asleep.  Because of that apprehension of mine, I refused the office of best man till Willoughby had sent me a third letter.  He insisted on my coming.  I came, saw, and was conquered.  I trust with all my soul I did not betray myself, I owed that duty to my position of concealing it.  As for entirely hiding that I had used my eyes, I can’t say:  they must answer for it.”