'Yes, my friend, I always trust fanatics in their own particular line of monomania. Besides, for all his religious craze, Baltic appears to be a shrewd man; also he is a silent one, so if anyone can carry the matter through judiciously, he is the person.' 'What about Cargrim?' 'Leave him alone, lad; with sufficient rope he'll surely hang himself.' 'Shouldn't the bishop be warned, doctor?' 'I think not. If we watch Cargrim and trust Baltic we shall be able to protect Pendle from the consequences of his folly.' 'Folly! What folly?' 'The folly of having a secret. Only women should have secrets, for they alone know how to keep them.' 'Everyone is of the opposite opinion,' said Brace, with a grin. 'And, as usual, everyone is wrong,' retorted Graham. 'Do you think I have been a doctor all these years and don't know the sex?--that is, so far as a man may know them. You take my word for it, Brace, that a woman knows how to hold her tongue. It is a popular fallacy to suppose that she doesn't. You try and get a secret out of a woman which she thinks is worth keeping, and see how you'll fare. She will laugh, and talk and lie, and tell you everything--except what you want to know. What strength is to a man, cunning is to a woman. They are the potters, we are the clay, and--and--and my discourse is as discursive as that of Praed's vicar,' finished the doctor, with a dry chuckle. 'It has led us a long way from the main point,' agreed Harry, 'and that is--what is Dr Pendle's secret?' Graham shook his head and shrugged his shoulders. 'You ask more than I can tell you,' he said sadly. 'Whatever it is, Pendle intends to keep it to himself. All we can do is to trust Baltic.' 'Well, doctor,' said Harry, taking a reluctant leave, for he wished to thresh out the matter into absolute chaff, 'you know best, so I shall follow your advice.' 'I am glad of that,' was Graham's reply. 'My time is too valuable to be wasted.' While this conversation was taking place, Baltic was walking briskly across the brown heath, in the full blaze of the noonday. A merciless sun flamed like a furnace in the cloudless sky; and over the vast expanse of dry burnt herbage lay a veil of misty, tremulous heat. Every pool of water flashed like a mirror in the sun-rays; the drone of myriad insects rose from the ground; the lark's clear music rained down from the sky; and the ex-sailor, trudging along the white and dusty highway, almost persuaded himself that he was back in some tropical land, less gorgeous, but quite as sultry, as the one he had left. The day was fitter for mid June rather than late September.