y daughter to marry him, if it's
true?"

"I suppose you wouldn't," murmured Neeld.

"And there's another thing. Duplay says Harry knows it--Duplay swears he
knows it. Well then, what's he doing? In my opinion he's practising a
fraud. He knows he isn't what he pretends to be. He deceives me, he
deceives Janie. If the thing ever comes out, where is she? He's treated
us very badly if it's true."

The man, ordinarily so calm and quiet in his reserved strength, broke
out into vehemence as he talked of what Harry Tristram had done if the
Major's tale were true. Neeld asked himself what his host would say of a
friend who knew the story to be true and yet said nothing of it. He
perceived too that although Iver would not have forced his daughter's
inclination, yet the marriage was very good in his eyes, the proper end
and the finest crown to his own career. This had never come home to
Neeld with any special force before. Iver was English of the English in
his repression, in his habit of meeting both good and bad luck
with--well, with something like a grunt. But he was stirred now; the
suddenness of the thing had done it. And in face of his feelings how
stood Mr Neeld? He saw nothing admirable in how and where he stood.

"Well, we'll see Mina and hear if she's got anything to say. Fancy that
little monkey being drawn into a thing like this! Meanwhile we'll say
nothing. I don't believe it, and I shall want a lot of convincing. Until
I am convinced everything stands as it did. I rely on you for that,
Neeld--and I rely on you to come to Merrion to-morrow. Not a word to my
wife--above all not a word to Janie!" He got up, took possession of
Neeld's review, and walked off into the house with his business-like
quick stride.

Neeld sat there, slowly rubbing his hands against one another between
his knees. He was realizing what he had done, or rather what had
happened to him. When his life, his years, and what he conceived to be
his character were considered, it was a very surprising thing, this
silence of his--the conspiracy he had entered into with Mina Zabriska,
the view of duty which the Imp, or Harry, or the thought of beautiful
Addie Tristram, or all of them together, had made him take. So strange a
view for him! To run counter to law, to outrage good sense, to slight
the claims of friendship, to suppress the truth, to aid what Iver so
relentlessly called a fraud--all these were strange doings for him to be
engaged in. And why