"He told me you were wretched about something. But who's Quentin?--not Quentin Lowe?" They were the very words Len had used, and Janey shuddered. "Yes ..." she said faintly, "Quentin Lowe." "But----" "You'll never understand.... I hid it from you for three years." "Hid what, Janey?" "My--my love." Nigel's arm dropped from her waist, but hers was round his neck, and she clung to him feverishly. "Yes, I loved him. I loved him and I pitied him ... and I wanted, I tried, to help him--and--and I've been his ruin--and another woman has saved him." Nigel was speechless. What astonished him, the man of secrets, most, was that Janey should have had a secret from him for three years. "Don't tremble so, darling--but tell me about it. I won't be hard on you." "You will--when you know all." "Does Len know all?" "Yes." He glanced over to the sleeping man, then put back his arm round Janey's waist. "Now tell me--all." Janey told him--all. For some moments there was silence. The rain was still beating on the leaves, but the moon had torn through the clouds, and flung a white patch over Leonard's feet. The fire was just a red lump, and Janey and Nigel, sitting outside the moonrays, were lost in darkness. Janey wondered when her brother would speak. She could see the outline of his face, blurred in the shadows. He held his head high, and he had not dropped his arm from her waist, but his free hand was clenched--then she felt the other clench against her side. Sickening fears assailed her. Why did he not speak? Only that arm round her gave her hope.... Then suddenly he took it away, and put both his hands over his face. She saw his shoulders quiver, just for a moment, then for what seemed long moments he did not move. A paralysis of horror was creeping towards her heart. He was taking things even worse than she had expected, but they did not seem to fill him with anger so much as with grief. His body was crumpled as if under a load, and when he suddenly dropped his hands and looked up at her, she drew back shuddering from what she saw in his eyes. "My poor boy!--I wish I hadn't told you." "Oh, God!--oh, God!" Something in his cowering, hopeless attitude woke all the divine motherhood in Janey. She forgot her fear of unforgiveness, her danger of a rebuff, and put her arms round him, drawing his head to her breast. "My poor Nigel ... my poor, poor lad!"--so she comforted him for the shame he felt for her. After a time, when thought was not quite swallowed up in tenderness, she began to wonder why he let her hold him so.