It may have been that he was too preoccupied with his own feelings to notice her tears, or that he did not dare to notice them. Winifred herself rose hastily, and sat down again a little hastily too, taking care to turn her back to the light which she had before been facing. She knew that her hand was trembling, and although it might have been caused by the momentary surprise, the feeling of weakness it produced unnerved her, and she was thankful that Anthony, when he sat down, sat leaning forward with his elbow on his knee, and his face on his hand, looking straight before him through the open window at the dull greyness, as if he saw nothing on either side. A minute before Winifred had not felt as if it were possible to speak, but it is often necessary to fly from silence and take refuge in commonplaces, and she gathered up the work which lay in her lap and said,-- "I hope you did not want to see the others, for they have driven to Aunecester." "I did not want to see any one but you, Winifred," said Anthony, without changing his position. The words were so unlike what she expected, that she trembled again with a thrill that was neither joy nor fear, but something more exquisitely painful. Anthony went on after a moment's pause,--"I suppose you do not know what happened last night?" "Last night? No." "That poor fellow of whom we were speaking the other evening, David Stephens, fell into the water, and died in a few hours." "O poor Faith!" said Winifred, touched by an instantaneous sympathy. "Yes," said Anthony, gravely. "We would have sent her home, but she has begged my mother to let her stay." "Were you there?--how did you know about it?--where was it?" "Yes, I was there. It was in Underham," said Anthony. He had spoken throughout in the same short abstracted tone, as if a fit of absence were upon him; but what he had told her was sufficient to account for it, and she had forgotten herself in its sadness, and was looking at him with compassionate eyes, when he turned round for the first time, and said slowly, "I wished to see you alone, because you may as well know that it is proved--sufficiently, I suppose, for the satisfaction of my friends--that I am not quite the rogue they made me out to be. I can't answer any questions, and it is not possible now, any more than then, to explain exactly what did take place. Therefore, there is, of course, still room for doubt. At the same time David, before he died, poor fellow, declared that the letter never reached my hand, so--you may take the evidence for what it is worth. You are the only person to whom I shall repeat it."