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“Then it’s—it’s him—the ‘stranger who might’—you know. And I really should have told you, though there wasn’t anything to tell, only—don’t laugh.”

“I’m not. Can’t you see I’m not? Only what?”

“Well, when I spoke to him that day in the train, I said, ‘Why shouldn’t we talk?’ And he said, ‘I—I—I—be—be—be—because I stammer so.’ And he did. You never heard anything like it. It was awful. He took hours to get out those few words, and I didn’t know where to look. And I felt such a brute because of the things we’d said about him, that I had no sense left; and I told him straight out how I’d wondered he never even said he wondered how late the train was when we were waiting for the 9.1, and I was glad it was stammering and not disagreeableness. And then I said I wasn’t glad he stammered, but so sorry; and he was awfully nice about it, and I told him about that man who cured your brother Cecil of stammering, and he went to him at once: and he’s almost all right now.”

“Good gracious!” said Molly. “Are you sure—but why didn’t he get cured long ago?”

“He had a mother: she stammered frightfully—