“‘Jack Digby is as white as they’re made,’ he was saying, but I didn’t hear any more. Luckily my back was towards him, so he couldn’t see my face. Jack Digby! Poor devil! With Sybil Maitland, the girl, in his mind, the blow I’d given him must have been even crueller than I’d thought. And what a strange coincidence that I should be going to meet him again in such circumstances. Maitland was still rambling on, but I was paying no attention to him. I could, of course, say nothing unless Digby gave me permission; but it struck me that if I told him how the land lay—if I told him that not only was his silence being completely misconstrued, but that it was making the girl unhappy, he might allow me to tell her father the truth. After all, the truth was far better; there was nothing to be ashamed of in having a rotten heart. “And it was just as I had made up my mind to see Digby that night that the door opened and Tom, the boy, came in. I hadn’t seen him since he was quite a child, and the first thing that struck me about him was that he was almost as good-looking as his sister. He’d got the same eyes, the same colouring, but—there was the devil of a but. Whereas his sister gave one the impression of being utterly frank and fearless, the boy struck me immediately as being the very reverse. That he was the apple of his mother’s eye, I knew—but that signifies nothing. Thank God! mothers are made that way. And as I stood watching him talking to his father I recalled certain vague rumours that I’d heard recently and had paid scant attention to at the time. Rumours of wild extravagance up at Oxford—debts well into the four figures. . . . They came back to my mind, those idle bits of gossip, and they assumed a definite significance as I studied the boy’s face. It was weak—utterly weak; he gave one the impression of having no mental or moral stamina whatever. He poured himself out a glass of sherry, and his hand wasn’t quite steady, which is a bad sign in a boy of under twenty-one. And he was a little frightened of his father, which is bad in a boy of any age when the father is a man like Joe Maitland. And that wasn’t all, either. There was something more—something much bigger on his mind: I was sure of it. There was fear in his heart; you could see it lurking round his eyes—round his mouth. I glanced at Joe, but he seemed quite oblivious of it, and then I left them and went up to dress for dinner. I remember wondering as I turned into my room whether the boy had got into another scrape—then I dismissed him from my mind. Jack Digby was a more interesting and more pressing problem. “I met him in the hall as I came down, and he gave a sudden start of astonishment. “‘Why, Doctor,’ he said quietly as we shook hands, ‘this is a surprise. I’d no idea you were to be here.’ “‘Nor I that you were coming,’ I answered, ‘until Mr. Maitland happened to mention it a little while ago.’ “‘You haven’t said anything to him, have you?’ he cried anxiously.