"You must not ask me to pass on that message."
"Why, pray?"
"If your love is real, you cannot wish to give her unnecessary distress."
Maurice's face changed, but he made no reply. He just touched the offered hand, and strode away, not looking back. Mr. Winton followed to open the front door, but he was already gone.
"So—that is what it really hangs upon!" Maurice said, as he walked rapidly through the garden. He saw nothing by the way. "That is the stumbling-block. Who was my father? What is the mystery? Why have I been kept in the dark, all these years? What possible reason can there be?"
He reached the gate, flung it open, and went through.
"Does Mr. Stirling know? If he does—I have a right to be told. I shall see him, and demand it, as a right."
Wounded pride and bitter wrath had him in their grip, mingled with overwhelming pain. His loving confidence in Doris lay shattered in the dust. His was a sunny-tempered nature in ordinary life; but it held cyclonic possibilities.
It had become plain to him that the question of his parentage was the real cause for which he had been thrown over; and upon this his mind was now concentrated. Why all the mystery? Why his mother's falsity? And who was his father?
He went to the cab-stand, and drove direct to Lynnthorpe, purposing to bring matters to a point between the Squire and himself. But when he asked for Mr. Stirling, the reply came promptly,—Away from home.