"Do you mean, then, that he told you a falsehood?"
"His letter to me was very strange, though I did not think much of it at the time. He said, 'I am to be married'—naming no day."
"That certainly was—a falsehood, as, at that time, he was married."
"I do not know that harsh words will do any good."
"Nor I. But it is best, George, that you and I should be quite plain in our words to each other. Placed as he was, and as you were, he was bound to tell you of his marriage as soon as he knew it himself. You had waited till he was between forty and fifty, and, of course, he must feel that what you would do would depend materially upon what he did."
"It didn't at all."
"And then, having omitted to do his duty, he screens his fault by a——positive misstatement, when his intended return home makes further concealment impossible."
"All that, however, is of little moment," said Lord George, who could not but see that the Dean was already complaining that he had been left without information which he ought to have possessed when he was giving his daughter to a probable heir to the title. "There is more than that."
"What more?"
"He had a son born more than twelve months since."