Charmingly and sincerely as he spoke, I was yet conscious of a reserve. He kept, as it were, to the surface of his itinerary, dwelling only on the outer details of his life. And, as little by little he repossessed me, I knew that I should have to get behind this reticence. For when and how had he lost those ten years? In Trenchard's loft, or since, or partly both? Had he, when he had plunged into the sea a mile out of Dover, been still twenty-nine, or his present age, or some intermediate one? If I was to be of service to him it was necessary that I should know all this. "Derry," I said, using his name for the first time, "I can't walk all the way to St Briac and back again. For one thing I'm dressed for a party. Let's sit down." There was a warm dry earth-wall with heath and thyme and rest-harrow and convolvulus growing on it, and there we sat down. Opposite us opened the marshy gap of Le Port, and every four seconds, every eleven seconds, the aurora-like Light a dozen miles away was faintly reduplicated in the wet mud. All was quiet save for the ceaseless rustle of the ragged poplars, the creeping whisper of the tide. "Now," I quietly ordered him, "I want you to tell me all the things you've been leaving out." At first I thought he was going to behave like an obdurate boy, whose affairs are hugely important just because they are his. But he seemed to think better of it. In a hesitating voice he said, "What things?" "Well, begin with Trenchard's place on Sunday night, the 4th of July. What happened then?" His answer was hardly audible. "Yes, it was then." "How much?" "The whole lot." "At one go you dropped from twenty-nine to--what is it now? Twenty?" "Nineteen or twenty. I don't know. Yes." "Then nothing's happened since then?" "No--at least I'm not quite sure." "Not sure?" "No. I honestly don't know. There's been a gap somewhere, something I ought to have come to again, but that somehow I've missed altogether. I simply can't account for it." "Explain, Derry." He seemed hardly to trust his voice. "It's the queerest thing of all, but I'll swear it on a Bible if you like. You know what it was I funked more than anything--all those beastly rotten things going to happen all over again.... Don't let's talk about them. They were all the time like a nightmare to me, that I was drawing nearer and nearer to all the time. I tell you, I'd decided to put myself out rather than wallow through all that again.... Well, I can only tell you I've absolutely skipped it. On my honour I have. It's the most unaccountable thing, but----" He choked a little. "But," I said, deeply pondering, "is it possible to skip a step--_any_ step?" "I should have said not," he replied. "Beats me altogether. I started on a dead straight course back, and I fancied I should have to take my fences as I came to them. But this kink's come, and somehow I've picked up the thread again clear on the other side of it."