‘No--’ he said at last, unwillingly, almost I thought despairingly--‘and that makes it all the more intolerable. The cases were empty; and from the position in which I found them it seemed to me they had been thrown into the drawer just anyhow, by a person in a frantic hurry--too great a hurry to make sure the drawer was actually locked. For, if it had been properly locked, it would not have given way so easily when I tried to force it. These signs of haste increased my fears, Brownlow. For think,’ he cried with sudden passion, ‘only think what it all points to, what it may all mean! How could these precious things of my mother’s have found their way into the drawer of Fédore’s worktable--unless? The conjunction of ideas would be positively grotesque if--if it were not so damnable.--Does not it occur to you what horrible possibilities are opened out?’ It did. I gauged those possibilities far more clearly than he, indeed, remembering my conversation with Warcop in the stables at Hover but a few weeks back. For was not Warcop’s theory in process of being proven up to the hilt? But how could I speak of either theory or proof to Hartover, distracted and tortured as he was? To do so would be incomparably cruel. No, I must play a waiting game still. The truth--or, to be exact, that which I firmly and increasingly believed to be the truth--must reach him by degrees, lest he should be driven into recklessness or violence. I would temporise, try to find excuses even, so as to retard rather than hasten the shock of that most ugly disclosure. ‘All which you tell me is very strange and perplexing,’ I said. ‘But do not let us be hurried into rash and possibly unjust conclusions. There may be some explanation which will put a very different complexion upon affairs. Have you asked for any?’ ‘No,’ he said. ‘It was too soon to think of that. I could not meet her, could not trust myself to see or speak to her then. My one impulse was to get away, to get out of the house in which, as it seemed to me, I had been so shamelessly betrayed and tricked. I was half mad with rage and grief. For--ah! don’t you understand, Brownlow?--I do love her. Not as I loved Nellie Braithwaite. That was unique--a love more of the soul than the senses. Pure and clean as a wind of morning, blowing straight out of paradise. The love of my youth, of--in a way--my virginity; such as can never come twice in my or any man’s life.’ He stopped, a sob in his throat. But not for long. The floodgates were open--all the proud, wayward, undisciplined, sensitive nature in revolt.