“It's the truth, sir, and you've only a minute, unless you want to see him but it was so very plain that Ted didn't want to see him, that Donald, who more fully took in the need for haste, pressed Ted's hat and cane into his hand, and then throwing open one of the shutters of the back windows of his room, helped him to make the best possible time getting through it. It was rather heroic treatment for a convalescent, who was barely equal as yet to even commonplace modes of proceeding, but there was nothing else to be done if the secret was still to be kept.