“You’ve got to learn some day how intensely stupid and simple I am, so perhaps you had better know soon as late. Well, I think the reason why he brought my tongue to such a pitch of volubility was because he is very keen on finding out all secrets, and he thought I should save time and trouble by being made very talkative.” “He is keen on finding out secrets?” “Yes; it sounds silly, but it’s true. He was most peculiar. If other men are like him, I pity the women that have to deal with them, and often think how fortunate my aunt was, for uncle was most quiet and peaceable.” “Your experience of people is not very great.” She sighed. “No; I could not tell whether he was like other men or not. That’s how it was I felt at such a disadvantage all the time. Anyway, he wasn’t like any of my relations, the girls and women that I knew, nor even like the doctor that attended us, nor the bread baker, nor the butcher, nor any of those. But then Everard wasn’t. None of them were, in fact.” “What led to your discovery of his _penchant_ for secrets?” “Mariana told me; and when she told me, I laughed to myself, it seemed so utterly ridiculous. But afterwards I came to understand it. That is why he quarrelled with me, and left me a prisoner in the upper storey.” “In so short a time?” “Yes. He found I had no secret worth discovering.” “But had you not?” “No. Sometimes I felt tempted to tell him the real facts of my last visit to the temple, but something always held me back. And after all, if I had told him I should have become a prisoner all the same.” “Maybe. Then in the end you quarrelled with him?” “No, he quarrelled with me. We were getting on, as I considered, very nicely, and suddenly I could say nothing that would please him. Afterwards I understood it was because he had grown tired of me, and found me unprofitable, so far as secrets were concerned.” “And so you were consigned to shadows, and a suite of rooms in an upper storey?” “Yes, and it was terrible. I never wish to go through such a time again. It seemed to me eternity. Even now I don’t believe it was a week. It was a year of weeks.” “Did Mr. Barringcourt ever ask you any questions about the Serpent?” “Yes; he often asked me questions.” “And you never told him what you had seen then?” “No, I couldn’t, much as I wanted to. When I got to that part I only stammered, and that used to make him angry.” “Then how can you say he discovered you had no secret worth discovering when you distinctly had one?” “He would have simply ridiculed it, and said there was no truth in it. So what was it worth to him?” “You used some little reason, then, in the controlling of your tongue?” “Perhaps it was I, but I gave the credit elsewhere.” “Now we have to discover the merit that lit the path for you to here.” “Will you not put on your glasses? It will be hard to find.” “How long did you say you prayed to the Serpent for the gift of speech?”