"He shall not see the boy," said Trevelyan. "You may see him. He shall not. What is he that he should have control over me?"
"This is the most fearful thing I ever heard of," said Sir Marmaduke. "What are we to do with him?"
Mr. Glascock whispered a few words to Sir Marmaduke, and then declared that he was ready to be taken to the child. "And he will remain here?" asked Trevelyan. A pledge was then given by Sir Marmaduke that he would not force his way farther into the house, and the two other men left the chamber together. Sir Marmaduke, as he paced up and down the room alone, perspiring at every pore, thoroughly uncomfortable and ill at ease, thought of all the hard positions of which he had ever read, and that his was harder than them all. Here was a man married to his daughter, in possession of his daughter's child, manifestly mad,—and yet he could do nothing to him! He was about to return to the seat of his government, and he must leave his own child in this madman's power! Of course, his daughter could not go with him, leaving her child in this madman's hands. He had been told that even were he to attempt to prove the man to be mad in Italy, the process would be slow; and, before it could be well commenced, Trevelyan would be off with the child elsewhere. There never was an embarrassment, thought Sir Marmaduke, out of which it was so impossible to find a clear way.
In the meantime, Mr. Glascock and Trevelyan were visiting the child. It was evident that the father, let him be ever so mad, had discerned the expediency of allowing some one to see that his son was alive and in health. Mr. Glascock did not know much of children, and could only say afterwards that the boy was silent and very melancholy, but clean, and apparently well. It appeared that he was taken out daily by his father in the cool hours of the morning, and that his father hardly left him from the time that he was taken up till he was put to bed. But Mr. Glascock's desire was to see Trevelyan alone, and this he did after they had left the boy. "And now, Trevelyan," he said, "what do you mean to do?"
"To do?"
"In what way do you propose to live? I want you to be reasonable with me."
"They do not treat me reasonably."
"Are you going to measure your own conduct by that of other people? In the first place, you should go back to England. What good can you do here?" Trevelyan shook his head, but remained silent. "You cannot like this life."
"No, indeed. But whither can I go now that I shall like to live?"
"Why not home?"