I ought to have told him, there and then, of what I had seen at the cross-roads that night of the murder of Phillips; and of my conversation about that with Abel Crone at his shop; and of my visit to Sir Gilbert Carstairs at Hathercleugh House.

Had I done so, matters would have become simplified, and much more horror and trouble avoided, for Mr.Lindsey was just then at the beginning of a straight track and my silence turned him away from it, to get into more twisted and obscure ones.

But--I said nothing.

And why?
The answer is simple, and there's the excuse of human nature in it--I was so much filled with the grand prospects of my stewardship, and of all it would bring me, and was so highly pleased with Sir Gilbert Carstairs for his advancement of my fortunes, that--here's the plain truth--I could not bring myself to think of, or bother with, anything else.

Up to then, of course, I had not said a word to my mother or to Maisie Dunlop of the stewardship--I was impatient to tell both.