The current of sympathy was broken, and as often as not they turned the
conversation altogether into a conventional and less interesting channel.
That change of manner became apparent now. Sybil Linforth leaned back and
abruptly ceased to speak.

"Please go on," said Dewes, turning towards her.

She hesitated, and then with a touch of reluctance continued:

"I succeeded until a month or so ago. But a month or so ago the secrets
came. Oh, I know him so well. He is trying to hide that there are any
secrets lest his reticence should hurt me. But we have been so much
together, so much to each other--how should I not know?" And again she
leaned forward with her hands clasped tightly together upon her knees and
a look of great distress lying like a shadow upon her face. "The first
secrets," she continued, and her voice trembled, "I suppose they are
always bitter to a mother. But since I have nothing but Dick they hurt me
more deeply than is perhaps reasonable"; and she turned towards her
companion with a poor attempt at a smile.

"What sort of secrets?" asked Dewes. "What is he hiding?"

"I don't know," she replied, and she repeated the words, adding to them
slowly others. "I don't know--and I am a little afraid to guess. But I
know that something is stirring in his mind, something is--" and she
paused, and into her eyes there came a look of actual terror--"something
is calling him. He goes alone up on to the top of the Downs, and stays
there alone for hours. I have seen him. I have come upon him unawares
lying on the grass with his face towards the sea, his lips parted, and
his eyes strained, his face absorbed. He has been so lost in dreams that