Saltash's shoulders went up. "You please yourself, _mon cher_. I am telling you the truth. I treated her like a puppy. I was kind to her, but never extravagantly kind. But I decided--eventually I decided--that it was time to turn home. No game can last forever. So we returned, and on our last night at sea we were rammed and sunk. Naturally that spoilt--or shall I say somewhat precipitated?--my plans. We were saved, the two of us together. And then was started that scandalous report of the woman on the yacht." Again the laughter sounded in his voice. "You see, _mon ami_, how small a spark can start a conflagration. In self-defence I had to invent something, and I invented it quickly. I said she was Larpent's daughter. I wonder if you would have thought of that. You'd have done it if you had, I'll wager." He turned upon the boy who strode in silence by his side with a gleam of triumph in his eyes, but there was no answering gleam in Bunny's. He moved heavily, staring straight before him, his face drawn in hard lines of misery. "Well," Saltash said, "that's all I have done. You now know the truth, simple and unadorned, as Sheila Melrose in her simplicity does not know it and probably would not comprehend it if she did." "Leave her out of it!" said Bunny, in a strangled voice. "It was--the obvious conclusion." "Oh, the obvious!" Cynicism undisguised caught up the word. "Only the young and innocent can ever really say with any conviction what is the obvious way of blackguards. You don't know it--neither do I. A single decent impulse on the part of a blackguard can upset all the calculations of the virtuous. Oh, Bunny, you fool, what do you want to wreck things for at this stage? Can't you see you've got a gift from the gods? Take it, man, and be thankful that you're considered worthy of it!" Bunny made a sharp movement of protest. Saltash was looking at him with half-humorous compassion as one looks at a child with a damaged toy, and he was keenly conscious of being at a disadvantage. But though checked, he was not defeated. Saltash had made out a case for himself. He had in a measure vindicated Toby. But that was not the end of the matter. He stopped and faced him. "Why were you so anxious for me to marry her?" he said. "I've got to know that." He was instantly aware that Saltash eluded him, even though he seemed to meet his look as he made reply. "You are quite welcome to know it, _mon ami_. I chance to take a fatherly interest in you both." Bunny flinched a little. Something in the light reply had pierced him though he could not have said how. "That's all?" he asked rather thickly. "That is quite all," said Saltash, and faintly smiled--the smile of the practised swordsman behind the blade.