Huckaby obeyed. He was, as he said, at her mercy. His story confirmed Vandermeer’s, but it covered a wider ground, and, told with truer perception, cast the desired light on dark places. She learned for the first time—for hitherto she had concerned herself little with Quixtus’s affairs—the fact of his disinheritance, Quixtus having, one raging day, revealed to Huckaby the history of the cynical will. She questioned him about Will Hammersley. His account of Quixtus’s half-given and hastily snatched confidence was a lightning flash. Clementina rose, aghast, and walked about the room. The idea of such a horror had never entered her head. Hammersley and Angela—it was incredible, impossible. There must have been some awful hallucination. That Hammersley, Bayard without fear and without reproach, and Angela, quiet, colourless saint, could have done this thing baffled all imaginings of human passion. It was inconceivable, ludicrous, grotesque. But to Quixtus it was real. He believed it. It lay at the root of his disorder. Even now, with his disorder cured, he believed it still. She was rent with his anguish. “My God! How he must have suffered!” “And in spite of everything,” said Huckaby, “he is as tender to Hammersley’s little daughter as if she were his own.” She swooped upon him in her abrupt fashion. “Thank you for that. You’ve got a heart somewhere about you.” She sat down again. “When do you think this suspicion, or whatever it was, crossed his mind? Let us go back.” They talked long and earnestly. At length, Huckaby having ransacked his memory of things past, they fixed as a probable date the day of the hostless dinner. Quixtus had sent down word that he was ill. The excuse was entirely false. Nothing but severe mental trouble could have stood in the way of his taking the head of the table. Obviously something had happened. Huckaby had a vague memory of seeing Quixtus, as he entered the museum, crush a letter in his hand and stuff it in his jacket pocket. It might possibly have been a letter incriminating the pair. Whether the conjecture was right or wrong did not greatly matter. Clementina felt now that she held the key to Quixtus’s mad conduct. Blow after blow had fallen on him. Those whom he had trusted had betrayed him. He had lost faith in humanity. The gentle nature could not withstand this loss of faith. There had been shock. He had set out to work devildom. The pity of it! She uttered a queer, choking laugh. “And not one piece of wickedness could he commit!” The summer twilight began to creep over the quiet street, and the darkness deepened at the back of the room. A long silence fell upon them. Clementina sat as motionless as a dusky sphinx, absorbed by strange thoughts and wrung by strange emotions that made her bosom heave and her breath come quickly. A scheme, audacious, fantastic, romantic, began to shape itself in her mind, sending the blood tingling down to her feet, to her finger-tips.