Mr. Nash was at the station when the 12.28 came in, and alone; it might have been by some sort of coincidence that he happened to be there just then, but Mr. Morgan seemed to take it for granted that he had come to meet him, an inference which Mr. Nash apparently resented. Mr. Morgan came up to him smiling in the most friendly fashion, and with hand held out.  
"My dear Nash, how are you?"
 
There was no smile on Mr. Nash's face, and he ignored the proffered hand.
 
"Thank you, Mr. Morgan, I am well."
 
"And my good friend, your dear wife? blooming, eh?"
 
"I'm not aware that Mrs. Nash ever was a friend of yours."
 
"No! my dear fellow! when we were so often under the same roof together."
 
"Do the servants of a house always regard their master's friends as their own?"
 
"My dear Nash, if you hadn't said that I should have said it was meant to be nasty. I was in the service of the head of the house, and your wife was a sort of attendant of the daughter's.
 
"Do you dare to say that my wife was ever Miss Lindsay's attendant?"
 
"Unpaid attendant, my boy, unpaid; sort of hanger-on--poor companion. I received a regular income; she got an occasional frock; some article of clothing; now and then a few pounds; as it were, the crumbs which fell from Miss Lindsay's table. Of course, pecuniarily mine was much the better position of the two; but I always have been one to overlook a mere financial difference, and I hope I always shall be."
 
"Look here, Morgan, if you're come down with the express intention of being insolent, I'll wring your neck, here, in the station."
 
Mr. Nash looked as if he were capable of at least trying to perform that operation on Mr. Morgan there and then, but Mr. Morgan only smiled.
 
"My dear Nash! the idea! Nothing can be further from my wish than to be insolent to you; as I'll show you before I've done. Where can we go where we can be quiet, and have a little chat together? And afterwards if you'll take me to 37, Ocean Villas, and offer me a little lunch, and give me an opportunity of renewing my acquaintance with your charming wife, I think you'll find that we are on better terms than you seem to suppose. Where are you going?"
 
Mr. Nash was striding out of the station.
 
"To the golf-links; you say you want to go somewhere where we can be quiet; you'll have the quietude you want there."
 
"Thank you; I don't think we need go quite so far as the golf-links, really; nor is that exactly the sort of solitude I was thinking of. You come with me; I'll be conductor." He opened the door of a fly which was by the kerb, and stood with the handle in his hand. "Step in."
 
The two men looked at each other, as if each was measuring the other's strength. Then Mr. Nash said--
 
"Where do you think you're going?"
 
Mr. Morgan spoke to the driver.
 
"Take us to the east end of the promenade, right to the extreme end." Then he turned to Nash. "We shall have all the quietude we want there. After you."
 
Nash hesitated, then entered the fly; Morgan followed; the fly drove off. As it rumbled along Mr. Morgan beguiled the way by spirited attempts at conversation; but he had all the talking to himself; not once did his companion open his lips. Mr. Nash sat with unbending back, stiff neck, grim face, looking straight in front of him; Mr. Morgan might not have been in the same vehicle for all the notice he took of him. Under the circumstances his unruffled affability did the latter gentleman credit. The vehicle set them down not only at the extreme end of the promenade, but beyond it. When the fly had gone Mr. Morgan called his companion's attention to their surroundings.
 
"You see! where could we have more privacy, even on the golf-links? Not a creature within many yards of us. We can sit on the beam of this groyne--could it be at a more convenient height?--and talk at our leisure."
 
Again Mr. Nash seemed to be measuring the other with his eye; his bearing did not point to his being at all in the conversational frame of mind which Mr. Morgan's words suggested; indeed he said as much.
 
"Now, my man, if you have anything to say, out with it; I've not the dimmest notion what it is you think you've got to say; to be quite frank, your whole conduct looks to me like infernal insolence; but, whatever it is, make it short; and take my advice, and be careful how you say it."
 
"My dear Nash, I assure you that no one could be more careful than I shall be."
 
"And don't you call me your dear Nash! you swollen-headed butler! I don't propose to allow a servant to treat me as an equal, nor do I propose to consort with him."
 
"Don't you? Now that shows how different we are. I don't mind with whom I consort; I'm even willing to consort with a thief."
 
"What--what the devil do you mean?"
 
Mr. Nash's eyes blazed; but they blazed out of a face which, consciously to himself or not, had suddenly grown pale. Mr. Morgan smiled as affably as ever; he offered Mr. Nash his cigar-case.
 
"Try one of my cigars; I think you'll find them something rather exceptional."
 
"Confound your cigars! I don't want your cigars! What do you mean by what you said just now?"
 
"You know what I mean as well as I do. There are moments when it's so unpleasant to have to dot one's i's; surely this is one. Then isn't it rather childish to pretend that you don't know what I mean when you do?"
 
"Are you going to tell me what you mean?"
 
"Certainly, if you insist; but is it wise?"
 
"Morgan, am I to knock you down?"
 
"You can try if you like; I dare say I can put up as good a fight as you can."
 
Again they seemed to gauge each other, eye to eye; Nash as if half beside himself with rage, Morgan all smiles.
 
"Will you tell me what you mean?"
 
Morgan looked away from the other's face, up into the air. He blew a ring of smoke from the cigar which he had lighted, following it with his eyes. Nothing could have been pleasanter than his manner, or more affable than his smile; he spoke as one who meditated.
 
"I happen to know that you borrowed certain sums of money from the late Mr. Donald Lindsay, for which you gave him notes of hand, amounting altogether to a little over a hundred pounds; a flea-bite to him, but a deal to you. When you were going through Mr. Lindsay's papers, on behalf of his daughter, you came upon those notes of hand; you put them into your pocket; you concealed their existence; in plainer words, you stole them."
 
"It's--it's an infernal lie!"
 
"My dear Nash, I saw you do it."
 
"You saw me!"
 
"I did. If you like I can describe to you, in d............