"Quite so," thought the journalist, "and doesn't confide it to you." Aloud he remarked:
"Of course there's nothing particular to be said against them, except that they're hardly in Cecil's set."
"I didn't need you to tell me that. But what about the ladies?"
"Ah, yes, the ladies. Well, really, you've put me in an awkward position, Miss Banborough. One can't be uncomplimentary to the fair sex, you know."
"Humph! Well, Josephus sees more of both of them than is good for him. But of course Mrs. Mackintosh has neither the youth nor the good looks to cause me any anxiety."
"Mrs. Mackintosh is eminently respectable," said Marchmont, who always spoke the truth when it did not conflict with business.
"Well," she cried, "why don't you speak?"
"Madam," he replied, "you place me in a most embarrassing situation. My duty to you and the natural gallantry of my nature draw me in different directions."
"I put myself in your hands. In saying what I do I'm laying myself open to serious misconstruction."
"Any indiscretion on your part would be most unfortunate."
"I shall not forget the confidence you've reposed in me."
"I shall hold you to that," he said. "If I tell you what I have in mind, will you promise not to use the information without my permission?"
"But implications, my dear Miss Banborough, are not evidence."
"You leave me no other course but to accede to your request," she said.
"The word of a woman in your position and of your high moral standard I know is sacred."
"Well, then," he continued, "please answer me this question. Where was your brother the first week in May?"
"For absolute rest. He was worried and run down."
"No, not once during the whole time. Sir Joseph Westmoreland, the great London nerve specialist, who advised the change, even prohibited correspondence."
"Because I saw the Bishop of Blanford in the United States in the first week of May on his way to Montreal, Canada."
"What I tell you is quite true. You say he was absent for a month. Might he not have gone to the States and returned in that time?"
His sister nodded. Then, as a sudden thought occurred to her, she flushed red with anger, exclaiming:
"And this girl, this Miss Arminster! Was she in Montreal also?"
"She was," replied Marchmont. "I saw her."