So the two stood in silence.

The house was quiet now, and most of those within it upon their beds.

Only, as the two knew, there still sat in silence within the little wainscoted parlour, with his head on his hand and a glass of muscadel beside him--he of whom they thought--the father of one and the friend and host of the other....

It was not until this instant in the dark and to the quiet, with the other lad's hands still gripped on to his arms, that this boy understood the utter shame and the black misery of that which he had said, and the other heard..