So, leaning against the table, he told her the truth, trying to do his task calmly and kindly, yet beset by a certain impatience at the still figure seated in his office chair, its elbows among his files, the coils of its beautiful hair showing beyond the hands in which the face was hidden. What business had it there? What business had the thought of its pain to come so close to him? closer even than his own reason, his own sense of justice? 'And you have known that he shot himself from the beginning?' she asked, raising her head suddenly to look him full in the face. He assented with a distinct self-complacency. 'Then what did you think made him do it? What did you think then--before you knew anything about the death or the opening of the gates?' The self-complacency vanished. 'There are many reasons or want of reasons, for that sort of thing, Miss Tweedie,' he said evasively. 'I did not--I mean it was impossible to say absolutely, and that is why I acquiesced in Fitzgerald's plan. It was more convenient to every one concerned.' 'Much more convenient,' echoed Rose sharply. 'And you have known this all the time, and not----' she broke off, as if incredulous of her own half-uttered thought. 'Certainly, I have known it, and we would have kept the secret too, Fitzgerald and I, but for this unfortunate business,' he retorted, and his tone was not pleasant. 'Ah! _he_ is different; _he_ did not know! _he_ thought George had done it for his sake, to screen him. But you? What did you believe?' The girl's very voice was a challenge. 'I must say, Miss Tweedie, that I scarcely see how my belief affects the question; or, pardon me, what it matters to you,' he replied, taking refuge once more in his indifference. 'Do you not? Then I do. Not that it matters now,' she added in sudden passion, 'for I will have my own way in the future. If you won't help me, I can't help that; but I will have the truth. I will go down to this woman in the bazaar and make her tell me. Whether her story is a lie or not, there shall be no more concealment. I will not have it.' 'And George Keene's memory?' he suggested, angered almost beyond his self-control by her unmistakable defiance. 'My advice is unwelcome, of course, but if you took it, and Mrs. Boynton's--only that is unwelcome too--you might save all scandal. I cannot say for certain that it would, but as I have told you, I would do my best. Officially even, I would do my best. That seems to be an offence also, for some reason, but I would do it as much for the sake of the Department as for the boy's. You--I know--think only of him----' She turned upon him like lightening, carried out of herself by her scorn, by her passion.