Her recollection of these details made the man who had given them stand out in her thoughts.
'It was a pitiful affair,' Mallinson concluded, 'but I thought you ought to know.' Clarice drew a finger down the frame of glass in front of her.
'Mr.Drake thought so too,' she said quietly.
'Drake!' exclaimed Mallinson, utterly bewildered.

'Drake! The man wouldn't be such a--' 'He was though.' 'Do you mean that he confessed to it ?' 'Confess ?' she said, turning towards him.

'That is hardly the word.

He told me of his own accord the moment he knew I had been engaged to--to--' She broke off at the name, and continued, 'and he spared himself in the telling far less than you have spared him.' She spoke with a gentle dignity which Mallinson had never known in her before, and he felt that it raised a more solid barrier between them than even her refusal had done.
Fielding, meanwhile, waited with an uneasy conscience which no casuistry would lighten.

He threw himself in Mallinson's way time after time in order to ascertain whether the latter had spoken.