was dreading the coming ordeal. He was not afraid of the physical pain, he
told me, but of the shame of the thing. We were near to becoming friends
that morning. He confessed to no one but me. But when the affair was
over--he bore himself very well--he resumed his usual airs of superiority,
and snubbed me when I attempted to sympathise with him.

And I saw, now, just the same boyish dread and perplexity that I had seen
when he made his confession to me at Oakstone. He looked to me, indeed,
absurdly unchanged by the sixteen years that had separated the two
experiences.

"You know, Melhuish," he said; "I'm not altogether blaming Brenda in one
way."

"Do you think she's really in love with Banks?" I asked.

"I don't know," he said. "How can any one know? But it has been going on a
long time--weeks, anyhow. They were all getting nervous about it at home.
The mater told me when I came down this afternoon. She wanted me to talk
to B. about it. I was going to. She doesn't take any notice of Olive.
Never has." He stopped and looked at me with an appeal in his face that
begged contradiction.

We were standing still in the moonlight at the edge of the wood and the
accident of our position made me wonder if Jervaise's soul also hesitated
between some gloomy prison of conventional success and the freedom of
beautiful desires. I could find no words, however, to press that
speculation and instead I attempted, rather nervously, to point the way
towards what I regarded as the natural solution of the immediate problem.
"Come," I said, "the idea of a marriage between Banks and your sister