"Really, you must appreciate," the man was saying, in a light, dry
voice, "I shouldn't feel at liberty to betray a secret of that sort,
even if I knew. I'm sorry, but--"

But the girl's sickening sensations of falling through space broke out
in faltering speech:

"_Oh!_... Do you _mean_ ..." She halted, to steady herself, and took a
fresh start, no better than the first: "Do you mean--that--"

"I mean only, Miss Heth, that I haven't the slightest idea what this is
all about. I thought," he said, in a voice of increasing hardness, "that
we were talking of the Works. If, at another time, you can give me a few
minutes--"

"Was it YOU?" said Carlisle, breaking through his defenses ... "Do you
mean--it was YOU, all along?..."

"I mean nothing of any sort. Does it occur to you that these questions
are quite unfair?--that they put me in a ..."

She demanded in a small voice: "_Did you buy this house for the
Settlement?_"

Shot down with the pointblank question, the tall young man, whose coat
was so extremely polished at the elbows, died game, saying with sudden
gentleness:

"No, it was my Uncle Armistead."