‘A truce to subterfuges, sir!’ cries the Rector. ‘A plain answer I will and must get. Who is this girl who lives in your house and refuses to see or know anyone in her neighbourhood?’ ‘I don’t know,’ says Wyndham sullenly, angered beyond control. ‘I do,’ says the Rector, ‘and may God forgive you for your sin! She is—’ ‘Be silent!’ cries Wyndham, interrupting him so imperiously that the older man stops short. ‘She is my tenant—my tenant, I repeat, and’—haughtily—‘no more.’ Silence follows upon this. The Rector, lost in thought, stands with clasped hands behind his back and his eyes upon the ground. His silence incenses Wyndham. ‘You can believe me or not, as you like,’ says he, turning on his heel. He moves away. ‘Stay, stay,’ cries Mr. Barry suddenly. ‘We must get to the end of this. If I have wronged you, Wyndham, I regret it with all my heart; but there has been some talk here, and Susan—she is very young, a mere child. I could not stand that. You tell me there is nothing to be condemned in all this business—that she, this girl in there, is only your tenant. But landlords do not visit their tenants except on compulsion, so far as I know; and you—what has brought you here to-day?’ ‘Just that,’ says Wyndham, who is still at white heat—‘compulsion. If you would condescend’—angrily—‘to listen to my explanation, I might, perhaps, make you understand.’ ‘I shall be only too glad to listen,’ says Mr. Barry, with dignity. ‘But here—how can I explain here?’ says Wyndham, glancing round at the open road and the walls. ‘Walls have ears.’ But Mr. Barry does not budge, and Wyndham gives way to rather sardonic laughter. ‘I suppose,’ says he, ‘you would not let me under your roof until this is perfectly clear?’ The Rector still remains immovable. ‘The roof of heaven is above us always,’ returns he. Whereupon Wyndham, who has sympathy with determination, laughs again, but more naturally this time, and forthwith tells him the whole story of his acquaintance with Ella from that first strange night until to-day. ‘Bless me!’ says the Rector, when the recital is at an end. He strokes his clean-shaven chin thoughtfully. ‘What an extraordinary tale!’ ‘Not too extraordinary to be believed, I hope?’—stiffly. ‘No, no. I believe you, Wyndham—I believe you thoroughly,’ says the Rector gently. ‘I am indeed sorry for my late distrust of you; but you will admit that there was cause. That poor girl! You have utterly failed, then, to discover those people with whom she had been living before that—that dreadful night?’ ‘So far, yes. But the fact that they once did live there goes far to establish the truth of her—’ He stammers a little, but Mr. Barry takes him up: ‘Her story? It entirely, in my opinion, establishes the truth of her story.’ Wyndham’s stammer has added to the truth of his declaration so far as the Rector is concerned.