"I don't wish to discuss it," she returned, getting off the road and beginning to walk in the direction taken by the car. "I fail to see why you, who are almost a stranger to me, should persist in discussing a subject which you must know is unpleasant for me to listen to. It is ungenerous of you to have brought me out with such an object." "Oh! no," he replied. "I can't see it in that light. It is to your interest, as well as to Mrs Arnott's, to clear up this matter." "Please leave me out of it. Would you," she asked, looking at him deliberately, "have taken so much trouble on my account?" "Possibly not," he admitted. "But since it is my intention to get to the bottom of this business, I could wish at the same time to be of service to you. It is not good for a girl to have her name coupled with that of a married man. You would be well advised in helping me to stop the thing." "It is easier to float a scandal than to stop one," she returned impassively. She glanced up at him as they strolled along over the coarse grass, and smiled strangely. "If you are acting for Mrs Arnott," she said, "you will have quite enough to do in covering the traces of an older scandal." He looked down at her quickly, and their eyes met in a long gaze of challenge and inquiry. There was so much of significance in the girl's tones, in her eyes, and in her peculiarly malicious smile, that Dare had an uncomfortable conviction that she knew more of the Arnotts' affairs than he had supposed. He began to think that she was not as guileless as he had believed. "To what do you refer?" he asked. She stopped abruptly and confronted him with an air of sullen defiance, an increase of angry colour in her cheeks. Dare, perforce, halted also, and faced her, perplexed beyond measure and distinctly annoyed. This sudden change of mood, with its suggestion of open antagonism, took him aback. He was conscious of a revulsion of feeling which amounted almost to disgust. He regretted that he had wasted his time in seeking her. "I don't know by what right you question me," she said. "If you want me to tell you certain things, you must explain your reasons. Confidence for confidence, Mr Dare." "Very good," he answered coolly. "I want you to furnish me with Mr Arnott's present address, to save me trouble in discovering it for myself." "Why do you want his address?" she inquired. "I thought we had gone into that already," he replied. "I wish to persuade him to return to his home as the best and quickest means of ending this scandal." She shook her head. "He won't," she answered positively. "He can't... He's ill." This information moved Dare to a show of surprise. For a moment he was inclined to discredit the announcement; but the girl's manner gave no indication that she was attempting to impose on him, and he accepted the statement as true. It was just possible that his illness accounted for Arnott's silence.