She moved towards it and sat down there, and Bryce followed her and seated himself.
"Well--" she said.
Bryce realized that his moment had arrived.

He paused, endeavouring to remember the careful preparations he had made for putting his case.
Somehow, he was not so clear as to his line of attack as he had been ten minutes previously--he realized that he had to deal with a young woman who was not likely to be taken in nor easily deceived.

And suddenly he plunged into what he felt to be the thick of things.
"Whether you, or whether Ransford--whether both or either of you, know it or not," he said, "the police have been on to Ransford ever since that Collishaw affair! Underground work, you know.

Mitchington has been digging into things ever since then, and lately he's had a London detective helping him." Mary, who had carried her work into the garden, had now resumed it, and as Bryce began to talk she bent over it steadily stitching.
"Well ?" she said.
"Look here!" continued Bryce.

"Has it never struck you--it must have done!--that there's considerable mystery about Ransford?
But whether it has struck you or not, it's there, and it's struck the police forcibly.
Mystery connected with him before--long before--he ever came here.