one
of us to say something. A question it must be. And the question I
asked was: "So he's going to show you the ship?"

She seemed glad I had spoken at last and glad of the opportunity to
speak herself.

"Yes. He said he would--this morning. Did you say you did not know
Captain Anthony?"

"No. I don't know him. Is he anything like his sister?"

She looked startled and murmured "Sister!" in a puzzled tone which
astonished me. "Oh! Mrs Fyne," she exclaimed, recollecting herself,
and avoiding my eyes while I looked at her curiously.

What an extraordinary detachment! And all the time the stream of shabby
people was hastening by us, with the continuous dreary shuffling of
weary footsteps on the flagstones. The sunshine falling on the grime of
surfaces, on the poverty of tones and forms seemed of an inferior
quality, its joy faded, its brilliance tarnished and dusty. I had to
raise my voice in the dull vibrating noise of the roadway.

"You don't mean to say you have forgotten the connection?"

She cried readily enough: "I wasn't thinking." And then, while I
wondered what could have been the images occupying her brain at this
time, she asked me: "You didn't see my letter to Mrs Fyne--did you?"

"No. I didn't," I shouted. Just then the racket was distracting, a
pair-horse trolly lightly loaded with loose rods of iron passing slowly
very near us. "I wasn't trusted so far." And remembering Mrs Fyne's
hints that the girl was unbalanced, I added: "Was it an unreserved
confession you wrote?"

She did not answer me for a time, and as I waited I thought that there's
nothing like a confession to make one look mad; and that of all
confessions a written one is the most detrimental all round. Never
confess! Never, never! An untimely joke is a source of bitter regret
always. Sometimes it may ruin a man; not because it is a joke, but
because it is untimely. And a confession of whatever sort is always
untimely. The only thing which makes it supportable for a while is
curiosity. You smile? Ah, but it is so, or else people would be sent
to the rightabout at the second sentence. How many sympathetic souls
can you reckon on in the world? One in ten, one in a hundred--in a
thousand--in ten thousand? Ah! What a sell these confessions are!
What a horrible sell! You seek sympathy, and all you get is the most
evanescent sense of relief--if you get that much. For a confession,
whatever it may be, stirs the sec