One thing he had at present to accept, that whatever might be the measure of affection Stephen might have for him, it was not love as he understood it.

He resolutely turned his back on the thought of his own side of the matter, and tried to find some justification of Stephen's act.
'Seek and ye shall find; knock and it shall be opened to ye' has perhaps a general as well as a special significance.

It is by patient tireless seeking that many a precious thing has been found.

It was after many a long cycle of thought that the seeking and the knocking had effectual result.

Harold came to believe, vaguely at first but more definitely as the evidence nucleated, that Stephen's act was due to some mad girlish wish to test her own theory; to prove to herself the correctness of her own reasoning, the fixity of her own purpose.