"It is very good of you to put it in that way, Mr Payne," I said. "I
felt so ashamed when your father commended me the other day; even you do
not fully know how wrong and foolish I was. No one does except Moore
and myself. No, scarcely Moore. I should like you to know the whole of
it, but you see I don't want to bring in Isabel Wynyard, and possibly
expose her to blame for having gossipped." I stopped in consideration.
"Perhaps," I resumed, "no one need ever know any more," and I looked up
at him as I said so.
"I think very decidedly that no one need ever hear or think any more of
that part of it," was his reassuring reply. "I can put it all together
pretty well, if it is any satisfaction to you for me to say so. And
your father is content to ask you no more than the fact of certain
knowledge having come to you that was not intended for you, and, after
all, `all's well that ends well,'" and here he smiled.
"Then it has or is going to end well?" I said eagerly.
At my words he grew grave again.
"Yes," he replied, "though," he hesitated a moment, "I don't want to
seem heartless, and death is always awe-inspiring, especially in such
circumstances as we have just seen it--your father and I, I mean."
"Then he _is_ dead?" I said breathlessly. "That unhappy man, Ernest
Fitzmaurice?"
Clarence bent his head.
"An hour or two after I saw him," he replied, "he died. But--truly
repentant."