impossible, but on my honour ... I did not know--I did not know for
certain, that is--that my stepfather ..."

"Ah!" said Lewisham, leaping at conviction. "Then I was right...."

For a moment she stared at him, and then, "I _did_ know," she said,
suddenly beginning to cry. "How can I tell you? It is a lie. I _did_
know. I _did_ know all the time."

He stared at her in white astonishment. He fell behind her one step,
and then in a stride came level again. Then, a silence, a silence that
seemed it would never end. She had stopped crying, she was one huge
suspense, not daring even to look at his face. And at last he spoke.

"No," he said slowly. "I don't mind even that. I don't care--even if
it was that."

Abruptly they turned into the King's Road, with its roar of wheeled
traffic and hurrying foot-passengers, and forthwith a crowd of boys
with a broken-spirited Guy involved and separated them. In a busy
highway of a night one must needs talk disconnectedly in shouted
snatches or else hold one's peace. He glanced at her face and saw that
it was set again. Presently she turned southward out of the tumult
into a street of darkness and warm blinds, and they could go on
talking again.

"I understand what you mean," said Lewisham. "I know I do. You knew,
but you did not want to know. It was like that."

But her mind had been active. "At the end of this road," she said,