He told the details of its origin, and the peremptory
words and actions of her father to extinguish their love.
Knight persevered in the tone and manner of a disinterested
outsider. It had become more than ever imperative to screen his
emotions from Stephen's eye; the young man would otherwise be less
frank, and their meeting would be again embittered. What was the
use of untoward candour?
Stephen had now arrived at the point in his ingenuous narrative
where he left the vicarage because of her father's manner.
Knight's interest increased. Their love seemed so innocent and
childlike thus far.
'It is a nice point in casuistry,' he observed, 'to decide whether
you were culpable or not in not telling Swancourt that your
friends were parishioners of his. It was only human nature to
hold your tongue under the circumstances. Well, what was the
result of your dismissal by him?'
'That we agreed to be secretly faithful. And to insure this we
thought we would marry.'
Knight's suspense and agitation rose higher when Stephen entered
upon this phase of the subject.
'Do you mind telling on?' he said, steadying his manner of speech.
'Oh, not at all.'
Then Stephen gave in full the particulars of the meeting with
Elfride at the railway station; the necessity they were under of
going to London, unless the ceremony were to be postponed. The
long journey of the afternoon and evening; her timidity and
revulsion of feeling; its culmination on reaching London; the
crossing over to the down-platform and their immediate departure
again, solely in obedience to her wish; the journey all night;
their anxious watching for the dawn; their arrival at St.
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