Still, for the life of him he could not altogether get rid of the spectre raised by Sturgess’s almost banal candor. The New Yorker was unmistakably a good fellow. He had behaved like a man during twenty-four hours which tested one’s moral fibre as pure metal is separated from dross in a furnace. Was it quite fair that he should be kept in ignorance of the astounding fact that Madge Forbes, and none other, was the heroine of that extraordinary ceremony in the Castle of San Juan?
Why not tell him? There was every reason to believe that he had indulged in no overt lovemaking as yet. Why not emulate his outspokenness, and thus spare him the certain shock of discovery?
Moreover, when the truth came out, would he not feel with justice that he had been very badly treated both by Maseden and the
