he thundered; ‘stop, don’t tell me anything. I don’t want to hear. I don’t want to know.’ He covered his face with his hands and groaned. It was not as though the speaker were a stranger, in which case he would have been by now well on in his death by strangulation; he had known Leonard all his life, and he was a friend of Stephen’s. And he was speaking truth.

The baleful glitter of Leonard’s eyes grew brighter still. He was as a serpent when he goes to strike. In this wise he struck.

‘I shall not stop. I shall go on and tell you all I choose. You have called me liar — twice. You have also called me other names. Now you shall hear the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. And if you won’t listen to me some one else will.’