"Did you tell them personally, or did you write?" pursued Jem Agar relentlessly.
"My dear fellow," replied Michael, pulling out his watch, "it is a long story, and we must get to the train."
"No," replied Agar, in the calm voice which raised a sort of "fearful joy" in Ruthine's soul, "we need not be getting to the train yet, and there is no reason for it to be a long story."
Seymour Michael gave an uneasy little laugh, which met with no response whatever. The two taller men exchanged a glance over his head. Up to that moment Jem Agar had hoped for the best. He had a greater faith in human nature than Mark Ruthine had managed to retain.
"Have you or have you not told those people whom you swore to me that you would tell, out there, that night?" asked Jem.
"I told your brother," answered the General with dogged indifference.
There was an ugly gleam in the blue eyes.
"I didn't tell him not to tell the others."
"But you suggested it to him," put in Mark Ruthine, with the knowledge of mankind that was his.
"What has it got to do with you, at any rate?" snapped Seymour Michael.
"Nothing," replied Ruthine, looking across at Agar.
"Why?" asked Jem hoarsely. It was singular, that sudden hoarseness, and the Doctor, whose business such things were, made a note of it.
"I didn't dare to do it. Why, man, it was too dangerous to tell a single soul. If it had leaked out you would have been murdered up there as sure as hell. There would have been plenty of men ready to do it for half-a-crown."
"That was _my_ business," answered Jem coolly. "You promised, you _swore_, that you would tell Dora Glynde, my step-mother, and my brother Arthur. And you didn't do it. Why?"
"I have given you my reasons--it was too dangerous. Besides, what does it matter? It is all over now."
The clock struck nine at that moment; and from the harbour came the sound of the ship's bells, high and clear, sounding the hour. The Hoe was quite deserted; these three men were alone. A silence followed the ringing of the bells, like the silence that precedes a verdict.
"I asked Mark Buthine," he said, "to come ashore with me, because I had reason to suspect your good faith. I can't see now why you should have done this, but I suppose that people who are born liars, as Ruthine says you are, prefer lying to telling the truth. You are coming down now with Ruthine and myself to Stagholme. I shall tell the whole story as it happened, and then you will have to explain matters to the two ladies as best you can."