ARTHUR
23

This incredible interview is over. Pleasure as well as pain attended my reflection on it. I held on to the promise I had carelessly given to Welbeck, but inflicted displeasure, and perhaps suspicion, on the woman. He'll find it hard to explain my silence. He would probably think of it as a crime, or imagine it flowing from some incident related to Clavering's death, which was calculated to give a new edge to his curiosity.

Obviously there's a connection between him and Welbeck. Was he going to leave that topic at the point he had reached just now? Will he stop exerting himself to extract the desired information from me, or would he not prefer to make Welbeck a party to that struggle, and to prejudge my new friend against me? This is the right crime, by all legitimate means, to be avoided. I knew there was no other way but to acknowledge the truth to him with respect to Clavering, and explain to him the dilemma in which my obedience to the promise had involved me.

I found it in my house back, and sent him the letter I charged. Upon seeing her, shock, mixed with anxiety, appeared in her appearance. "What!" he said, in a disappointed tone, "then did you see that woman?"

I now remember her directive to leave my message at the door, and apologize for I ignored it by saying my reason. His disappointment disappeared, but not without any real effort, and he said that everything was fine; the affair was not there at the moment.

He seemed to ponder deeply and with much confusion over what I was saying. When he spoke, there was doubt in his attitude and expression, which proved that he had something in his mind that he did not know how to communicate. He often stops; but my answers and comments, which are sometimes given, seem to hinder him from expressing his purpose. Our sermon ends, for the time being, because he wants me to stick to my current plan; I should not experience any discomfort from it, he said, because it would be my own fault if an interview came back between the woman and me; in the meantime she had to look at it and effectively silence her question.

I do not reflect superficially or briefly on this dialogue. In what way will he silence his question? He definitely intended not to mislead her with false representations. Some anxiety now crept into my mind. I began to make conjectures about the nature of the scheme that made my suppression of the truth subservient. It seems like I am walking in the dark and will probably get into a snare or fall into a hole before I realize my danger. Every moment gathered my doubts, and I kept a secret premonition that the event would prove that my new situation was far more unlucky than I initially believed. The question now arises, with painful repetition, who and what is Welbeck? What does this have to do with foreign women? What will I be hired for?