"
A light broke slowly upon Montague Nevitt's mind. He drew a deep
breath. This was good luck incredible. What Gilbert Gildersleeve
meant he hadn't as yet, to be sure, the faintest conception. But
it was clear they two were at cross-questions with one another.
The secret Gilbert Gildersleeve thought he had come down to Mambury
to discover was not the secret he had actually found out in the
register that morning. It was nothing about the Kelmscotts or Guy
and Cyril Waring; it was something about the great Q..C. and his
wife themselves--presumably some unknown and disgraceful fact in
Mrs. Gilbert Gildersleeve's early history.
And here was the cleverest lawyer at the English criminal bar just
giving himself away--giving himself away unawares and telling him
the secret, bit by bit, unconsciously.
This chance was too valuable for Mr. Montague Nevitt to lose. At
all risks he must worm it out. He paused and temporized. His cue
was now not to let Gilbert Gildersleeve see he didn't know his
secret. He must draw on the Q.C. by obscure half hints till he was
inextricably entangled in a complete confession.
"I had no intention of terrifying Miss Gildersleeve, I'm sure,"
he said, in his blandest voice, with his best company smile, now
recovering his equanimity exactly in proportion as the barrister
grew angrier.
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