t Bishopsbridge at twelve
o'clock, but I cannot go until I have settled this thing, which concerns
you only, Mrs Manderson. I have been working half the night and thinking
the rest; and I know now what I ought to do.'

'You look wretchedly tired,' she said kindly. 'Won't you sit down? This
is a very restful chair. Of course it is about this terrible business
and your work as correspondent. Please ask me anything you think I can
properly tell you, Mr Trent. I know that you won't make it worse for me
than you can help in doing your duty here. If you say you must see me
about something, I know it must be because, as you say, you ought to do
it.'

'Mrs Manderson,' said Trent, slowly measuring his words, 'I won't make
it worse for you than I can help. But I am bound to make it bad for
you--only between ourselves, I hope. As to whether you can properly tell
me what I shall ask you, you will decide that; but I tell you this on my
word of honour: I shall ask you only as much as will decide me whether
to publish or to withhold certain grave things that I have found out
about your husband's death, things not suspected by any one else, nor,
I think, likely to be so. What I have discovered--what I believe that I
have practically proved--will be a great shock to you in any case. But
it may be worse for you than that; and if you give me reason to think
it would be so, then I shall suppress this manuscript,' he laid a long
envelope on the small table beside him, 'and nothing of what it has
to tell shall ever be printed. It consists, I may tell you, of a short
private note to my editor, followed by a long dispatch for publication
in the Record. Now you may refuse to say anything to me. If you do
refuse, my duty to my employers, as I see it, is to take this up to
London with me today and leave it with my editor to be dealt with at
his discretion. My view is, you understand, that I am not entitled to
suppress it on the strength of a mere possibility that presents itself
to my imagination. But if I gather from you--and I can gather it from
no other person--that there is substance in that imaginary possibility
I speak of, then I have only one thing to do as a gentleman and as one
who'--he hesitated for a phrase--'wishes you well. I shall not publish
that dispatch of mine. In some directions I decline to assist the
police. Have you followed me so far?' he asked with a touch of anxiety
in his careful coldness; for her face, but for its pall