ut of the case. Possibly she had
made terms to that effect. More probably, I thought, Jervaise was a trifle
ashamed of the source of his evidence against me.

"Oh! look here, Melhuish," he said, with a return to his bullying manner.
"You're only making things look worse for yourself by all this beating
about the bush. It's evident that you didn't sleep in the house, and I
want to know why."

"Is sleeping in the house a condition of your hospitality?" I asked.

"Not in ordinary circumstances," he said. "But the circumstances are not
ordinary. I suppose you haven't forgotten that something happened last
night which very seriously affects us?"

"I haven't, but I don't see what the deuce it's got to do with me," I
returned.

"Nor I; unless it's one of your idiotic, romantic tricks," he retorted;
"but I have very good evidence, all the same, that you were concerned in
it."

"Oh! is that what you're accusing me of?" I said.

"It is," Jervaise replied.

"Then I can put your mind at rest," I said. "I am ready to swear by any
oath you like that I had nothing whatever to do with your sister's
elopement, and that I know..." I was going to add "nothing more about it
than you do yourself," but remembering my talk with Banks, I decided that
that was not perfectly true, and with the layman's respect for the
sanctity of an oath I concluded, "and that I know very little more about
it than _you_ do."

"It's that little bit more that is so important," Jervaise commented
sardonically.

After all, a legal training does count for something. I was not his match
in this kind of give and take, and I decided to throw down my hand. I was
not incriminating Banks. I knew nothing about his movements of the night,
and in that morning interview with old Jervaise the most important
admission of all must almost certainly have been made.

"Well, you have a right to know that," I began, "although I don't think
you and your family had any right whatever to be so damnably rude to me at
lunch, on the mere spiteful accusations of Miss Tattersall."

"Miss Tattersall?" Jervaise put in, with a very decent imitation of
surprise.

"Oh! I'm going to be perfectly honest with you," I returned. "Can't you
drop that burlesque of the legal manner and be equally honest with me?"

"Simply dunno what you're driving at," he said.

"Very well, then, answer the question you shirked just now," I retorted.
"Why did your mother rush to tell you that I hadn't s