Miss Blake, toying with a spray of the flourishing clematis, happened to look suddenly at Mr. Smith as he gave the answer, and saw his glance turned covertly on her through his green glasses. "He knows all about it," she thought, "and is screening Sir Karl. That last answer, the pretended non-remembrance, was an evasion. Men invariably hold by one another in matters of this kind. Just for a moment there was a silence. "Mr. Smith, you may trust me," she then said in a low tone. "I fancy that you and I both know pretty well who it was brought the lady here and why she lives in that seclusion. But I could never have believed it of Sir Karl Andinnian." Mr. Smith in his surprise--and it looked like very genuine surprise--took off his glasses and gazed at Miss Blake without them. He had rather fine brown eyes, she noticed. Not a word spoke he. "You wonder that I should speak of this, Mr. Smith--I see that." "I don't understand you, ma'am, and that's the truth." "Oh, well, I suppose you will not understand. Sir Karl ought to be ashamed of himself." Whether it was her tart tone that suddenly enlightened Mr. Smith, or whether he had but been pretending before, there could be no mistake that he caught her meaning now. He put on his green spectacles with a conscious laugh. "Hush," said he, making believe playfully to hide his face. "We are content, you know, Miss Blake, to ignore these things." "Yes, I do know it, dear sir: it is the way of the world. But they cannot be ignored in the sight of Heaven." The striking of nine o'clock inside the house reminded Miss Blake that the morning was getting on, and that she had best make haste if she wanted any breakfast. Mr. Smith held the gate open for her, and shook her offered hand. She stepped onwards, feeling that a mutual, if silent, understanding had been established between them--that they shared the disgraceful secret. Had Miss Blake wanted confirmation in her belief, this admission of Mr. Smith's would have established it. But she did not. She was as sure of the fact as though an angel had revealed it to her. The sight of her own good eyes, the hearing of her true ears, and the exercise of her keen common sense had established it too surely. "My task lies all plain before me," she murmured. "It is a disagreeable one, and may prove a thankless one, but I will not shrink from it. Who am I that I should turn aside from an appointed duty? That it _has_ been appointed me, events show. I have been guided in this by a higher power than my own." An appointed duty! Perhaps Miss Blake thought she had been "appointed" to watch the Maze gates in the shade of the dark night, to track the private steps of her unsuspicious host, Karl Andinnian! There is no sophistry in this world like self-sophistry; nothing else so deceives the human heart: more especially when it is hidden under a guise of piety.