“I reckon this is young Mr. Masters, ain’t it, Pettie?”
“Henry Pearsall Moseley,” Pearse made the statement he had made to Hilda in other words as they crossed the cellar down there. “Masters is the name of my adopted parents. I just told Hilda. But she didn’t want to wait for details. She hurried me right up here to you. I—I had thought, myself, that it would be better to speak to you alone, at first. You would rather not have her hear—”
He made a significant pause. Hank wasn’t listening; all his soul seemed to be in the gaze he set on this young man. When he spoke, it was to say, huskily, wonderingly,
“Harry!” Then slowly, “It is you. Yes—seems I must have knowed you, even without the name. You’ve got the look of your mother, boy.”
At that mention of his mother, Hilda saw an angry gleam come into Pearse’s eyes.
“See here!” he burst out. “I’ve not told Hilda anything but my name—and that I’m your stepson. She’d never have known from me that you and my mother were separated, and that you turned your back on me, as though I’d been a stray dog. But if you want her to hear it—”
“No! Oh, no!” Hilda broke in before Hank could find words. “That wasn’t the way of it, Pearse. Uncle Hank told me long ago about the little son he loved so, and— Oh, tell him, Uncle Hank! Tell him quick!”
“Come over here. Set down. Both of you,” said Hank’s quiet voice. “We got to get the rights of this.” He took his place in the desk chair. As they were getting settled so that they faced him, Pearse said more mildly,
“I’m sorry I spoke as I did just then. I don’t want to make Hilda feel bad. I’m willing to let bygones be bygones—if you will, sir.”
“So, my boy’s come back to me, after a-many year—come back with a grudge against me, has he, Harry? Of all the things I thought to expect—that wasn’t, somehow, one. And what you said just now about me and your mother having parted? She never told you such a word. Where did you get it?”