t place yourself at a disadvantage. Don't explain it."

Allan looked at him, in silent perplexity and surprise.

"You are my friend--my best and dearest friend," Midwinter went on. "I
can't bear to let you justify yourself to me as if I was your judge, or
as if I doubted you." He looked up again at Allan frankly and kindly as
he said those words. "Besides," he resumed, "I think, if I look into
my memory, I can anticipate your explanation. We had a moment's talk,
before I went away, about some very delicate questions which you
proposed putting to Major Milroy. I remember I warned you; I remember
I had my misgivings. Should I be guessing right if I guessed that those
questions have been in some way the means of leading you into a false
position? If it is true that you have been concerned in Miss Gwilt's
leaving her situation, is it also true--is it only doing you justice
to believe--that any mischief for which you are responsible has been
mischief innocently done?"

"Yes," said Allan, speaking, for the first time, a little constrainedly
on his side. "It is only doing me justice to say that." He stopped and
began drawing lines absently with his finger on the blurred surface of
the window-pane. "You're not like other people, Midwinter," he resumed,
suddenly, with an effort; "and I should have liked you to have heard the
particulars all the same."

"I will hear them if you desire it," returned Midwinter. "But I am
satisfied, without another word, that you have not willingly been the
means of depriving Miss Gwilt of her situation. If that is understood
between you and me, I think we need say no more. Besides, I have another
question to ask, of much greater importance--a question that has been
forced on me by what I saw with my own eyes, and heard with my own ears,
last night."

He stopped, recoiling in spite of himself. "Shall we go upstairs first?"
he asked, abruptly, leading the way to the door, and trying to gain
time.

It was useless. Once again, the room which they were both free to leave,
the room which one of them had twice tried to leave already, held them
as if they were prisoners.

Without answering, without even appearing to have heard Midwinter's
proposal to go upstairs, Allan followed him mechanically as far as the
opposite side of the window. There he stopped. "Midwinter!" he burst
out, in a sudden panic of astonishment and alarm, "there seems to be
something strange between us! You're not like yourself.