‘You have a more liberal mind than mine,’ says Wyndham. ‘I have told you so much that I may as well make you my father confessor _in toto_.’ The smile that accompanies this is rather strained. ‘As a fact, there was a time when I did not believe in her story myself; and now, when I have to—well, it makes me feel rather poor, you know.’ ‘You have no occasion to feel anything,’ says the Rector, ‘except that you have been a kind friend to her. Do you think you will be able to trace that fellow Moore?’ ‘I hope so. I have engaged a detective—one of the smartest fellows in Dublin—and I depend upon him to run down that scoundrel in a month or so.’ ‘In the meantime I shall make it my business to explain to everybody how matters really are,’ says the Rector. ‘To tell the people we know round here that—’ ‘I beg you won’t,’ says Wyndham hurriedly. ‘Have I not told you how she desires privacy above all things, how she dreads her discovery by that man? I know it all sounds mysterious, Mr. Barry—that it is asking a great deal of your credulity to expect you to believe it all—but I still hope you will believe me, and at all events I know her secret is safe in your hands. I myself have thought of suggesting to her to face matters bravely, and if Moore should prove troublesome, why, to fight it out with him. I cannot believe he has any actual claim on her; but she has such an almost obstinate determination not to risk the chance of meeting him that I fear she will not be moved by what I say. This shutting of herself up in that cottage seems a mania with her—such a mania that I cannot but think her story true, and that she suffered considerably at that fellow’s hands.’ ‘It looks like it,’ says the Rector. ‘Perhaps you will be able to combat her fears,’ says Wyndham rather awkwardly. ‘I should be very glad if you could, as this mystery surrounding her is—er—decidedly uncomfortable for me. You have seen that.’ ‘I wonder you ever consented to the arrangement.’ ‘I never meant to, but she seemed so utterly friendless, and she seemed to cling so to this place (a harbour of refuge it was to her, evidently), that I found it would be almost brutal to refuse.’ ‘It was a charitable deed,’ says the Rector. ‘Not done in a spirit of charity, however. I assure you I regret it more and more every day of my life,’ says Wyndham, with a short laugh. ‘However, in for a penny, in for a pound, you know, and I had promised the Professor to look after her. I have now engaged a companion for her. I think you may remember Miss Manning. She was a governess of the Blakes’ some years ago. You used to know them.’ ‘Manning? Oh, of course, of course,’ says the Rector—‘a most worthy creature. I never knew what became of her after Mary Blake went to India.’