At three o’clock, just when he seemed to be really on the point of making that long-delayed confession, he suddenly commenced to laugh. “’Minds me Cli’ Bangs!” he said. “Know Cli’ Bangs?” And becoming articulate again he went on, “I’ll tell you a funny story about him. He’s got a—(come on, everybody have another little drink!)—house out in the country. I te’ you ’bou’ tha’ h-house!” And with vague relapses into the muffled speech of drunkenness, and startling recoveries of clearness, but always with a thread of coherence, he told the story of Clive Bangs’ house. At times Roger, watchfully listening, had to serve as official interpreter; Roger understood the locutions of drunken speech as if they were a foreign language in which he was versed. And Felix, half-ashamed to listen, but curious, heard it to the end. It seemed that Clive had built—or rebuilt—that house in Woods Point for a girl he was in love with at the time, years ago, five or six or seven years ago. But, said Eddie Silver, he had neglected to tell the girl that he was in love with her. And so, about the time the house was finished, she married somebody else. Or at least, became engaged to some one else, whom she eventually did marry. The point of this story—to Eddie it was an exquisitely funny story—was that Clive Bangs had kept the house a secret from her, because he wanted it to be a surprise. And it was this secrecy of his which had convinced her that he had another sweetheart; so that, in pique, she became engaged to the other man. “Cli’s li’l’ secret!” said Eddie Silver, infinitely amused. “Do’ pay to have se-secrets. Tha’s why I go’ tell my li’l’ secret.” But again he wandered from the point, much to Don’s and Roger’s disappointment. This painful story about his friend stirred Felix deeply. He felt that it was true—true in essence, however fabricated in detail; it seemed to him indecent to have this stolen glimpse into the secret of Clive Bangs’ heart—and yet he was glad he had heard the story. Yes, it must be true. Rose-Ann had put it in a phrase: “Some girl has hurt him.” And this—this ridiculous and pathetic incident, too ridiculous ever to confess, a secret that must be buried deep and forgotten—was the reason for Clive’s being what he was.... And suddenly Felix understood why that story had moved him so:—for had he not been as ridiculously, as pathetically hurt, in his own episode of moon-calf-love back in Port Royal? And was that incident, too, to affect his whole life, remaining untold, unconfessed, poisoning his courage and his faith? He jumped up, went to his room, altogether wide awake, and commenced to write—the story of his folly in Port Royal. He commenced it as a letter to Rose-Ann. He did not consider whether he would ever dare to send it to her. He only knew that it must be written so.