"I cannot be ignorant, Mr. Bent, of the stigma you would cast on Mr. Castlemaine: the suspicion, I would rather say, lying in your mind against him. I believe that nothing can be more unjust: nothing more inconsistent with the true facts, could they be disclosed." John Bent was silent. She stood close in the corner, within the shade cast by the slanting bit of stone wall, the blank side wall of the Grey Nunnery towering close above her. John was so near as almost to touch her. The sea was before them, a light twinkling on it here and there in the distance from some fishing vessel; the grass-grown square, once the site of the chapel, with its dottings of low crumbling walls, lay to their left, and beyond it was the Friars' Keep, its gothic door pushed to as usual. A lonely spot altogether it was to stand in, in the silence of the spring night. "Why should you cherish this suspicion?" she asked. John Bent tilted his hat slightly up on one side, and slowly rubbed his head. He was a very honest-minded, straightforward man; and though he might on occasion find it inexpedient to avow the truth, he yet would not, even by implication, speak an untruth; or tacitly let one be inferred. "It is a subject, ma'am, on which my mouth ought to be closed to you." "Not at all," she answered. "Were I Mr. Castlemaine's wife or daughter you might urge that. I am his niece, it is true; but I have now in a manner withdrawn myself from the world, and----But I will leave that argument and go to another. For my own sake, I wish you to speak openly with me. These troubles lie on my mind; sometimes I cannot sleep for thinking of them." "I am sure I cannot sleep for them," said John. "And I think that steps should be taken to put the doubts to flight--if we only knew what steps they could be." John stooped to lodge the basket on the low top of the grass-grown cliff, jutting upwards before him. But he did not answer. "Believe me when I say that no thought of reproach on you for entertaining these opinions rests on my mind," proceeded Miss Castlemaine. "I am sure that you conscientiously hold them; that you cannot divest yourself of them; and----" "I wish I didn't," interposed John. "I only wish I had no cause to." "There is no cause," she said in a low tone; "no true one. I am as sure of it as that I stand here. Even had it been Mr. Castlemaine whom you saw come in here that night, I feel sure his presence could have been explained away. But I think you must have been mistaken. You have no confirmation that it was he: nay, the confirmation lies rather the other way--that he was not here. Considering all this, I think you ought not to persist in your opinion, Mr. Bent; or to let the world believe you persist in it." "As I have said before, madam, this is a matter that I don't care to talk to you upon."