Why did you not speak it?"
"I wish I had, now. But--it wasn't done. There! The knowledge that turns
up in the future we can't call to aid in the present. If I had had a
doubt that it was you, I should have spoken. We were some days out at
sea on our voyage to Australia when I and Luke got comparing notes; and
I found, to my everlasting astonishment, that it was not you, after all,
who had been with Rachel, but Fred."
"You should have written home, to do me justice with Mr. Verner. You
ought not to have delayed one instant, when the knowledge came to you."
"And how was I to send the letter? Chuck it into the sea in the ship's
wake, and give it orders to swim back to port?"
"You might have posted it at the first place you touched at."
"Look here, Lionel. I never regarded it in that grave light. How was I
to suppose that old Verner would disinherit you for that trumpery
escapade? I never knew why he had disinherited you, until I came home
and heard from yourself the story of the inclosed glove, which he left
you as a legacy. It's since then that I have been wanting to make a
clean breast of it.
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