"What can you find to object to in it?" asked Mr. Manners. "I have pledged myself to sift the matter to the bottom, and I am not the man to depart from my word. The course I propose is an honorable course, and the result must be your complete vindication. At the present moment you are under suspicion; you cannot wish to remain so. Of course, Inglefield, I cannot compel you to accompany me. If you refuse--"
Mr. Manners paused, but the uncompleted sentence was sufficiently comprehensive. Thus driven, there was no alternative before Mark Inglefield than to cry, with great warmth,
"Yes, sir, willingly, as you attach so much importance to it."
"I attach the most serious importance to it. We will start at eleven o'clock in the morning, and will go by train. To drive there would attract notice, which it is my desire, for more reasons than one, to avoid. It is agreed, then?"
"There is an aspect of this unfortunate affair," said Mr. Manners, "which seems not to have occurred to you."
"What is it, sir?" asked Mr. Inglefield, whose inward perturbation was not lessened by the continuance of the conversation.
"Think, Inglefield. I would prefer that it should come from you instead of from me."
"I can think of nothing," said Mark Inglefield, speaking now with sincere ingenuousness. "So far as I can see, we have threshed it completely out."
"Take a moment or two to consider. I am really anxious that it should occur to you."
Mark Inglefield pondered, but so entirely engrossed was he by the main issue--which now, indeed, he recognized was vital to his prospects--that there was no room in his mind for small side issues. He found himself incapable of wresting his thoughts from the one grand point--how was he to avoid this personal meeting with Mary Parkinson in the presence of her father and Mr. Manners?
"I can think of nothing," he said, presently.
"Then I must remind you," said Mr. Manners, coldly, "that Mary Parkinson has your portrait in her possession."
"True, sir, true," exclaimed Mark Inglefield. "How could it have escaped me? And, now that you have reminded me, I believe you said that the girl herself unblushingly proclaimed that the portrait was that of her betrayer." He said this glibly; a plan was forming in his mind by which he could avert the threatened danger.