Mrs. Wyeth?"

"Then you _do_ know?"

"Nothing, except that Nance met me at the door just now and puzzled me a
bit by her very curious manner of asking if I had been at the Wyeth's
this afternoon."

"_What_?" The other turned upon him, his eyes again blazing with the
yellow points, his whole figure alert. "She asked you _that--Really_?"

"To be sure!"

"And you said--"

"'No'--of course--and she mumbled something about having been foolish to
think I could have been. You know, old man, Nance was troubled. I could
see that."

His brother was now pacing the floor, his head bent from the beautifully
squared shoulders, his face the face of a mind working busily.

"An idiot I was--she didn't know me--I had only to--"

Bernal interrupted.

"Are you talking to yourself, or to me?"

The rector of St. Antipas turned at one end of his walk.