His ordinary level speech had become agitated, but he returned to himself again as he said quietly, "I've said more than I meant to. Take it from me that I'm not exaggerating, and do what I ask, for your own sake as well as mine."
A stormy gleam of light had broken over the Squire's puzzled features. "Do you mean to tell me that you're in disgrace—with this woman?" he asked.
Humphrey looked at him, and then laughed, without amusement. "Oh, it's nothing like that," he said. "But disgrace—yes. It will amount to that for all of us. Mud will stick, and she's prepared to throw it. She has said nothing to Gotch, and has promised not to. She'll say nothing to anybody, if we lend Gotch the money. That's all he wants, you know. He'll pay it back when he's made his way. We must lend him three hundred pounds. He's a steady man and safe. I'd give it him, if I had it. It's the greatest luck in the world that we can close her mouth in that way. Oh, you must do it, father."
He had become agitated again; and it was the rarest thing for him to show agitation.
The Squire was impressed. "I don't say I won't," he said; "but you must show me some cause, Humphrey. I don't understand it yet. And anyhow, I'm not going to pay blackmail, you know. What's the story this woman has got hold of—if you've done nothing, as you say?"
"No, I've done nothing. I don't want to tell you her story, father; and it will do you no good to hear it. Besides, it simply must be kept from getting out. You tell a thing in confidence to one person, and they tell it in confidence to another; and it's public property and the mischief done before you know where you are."
"I shan't tell a soul."
"Can't you just trust me, and think no more about it?"
"No, I can't, Humphrey. You must tell me what it's all about. I can't act in the dark."
Humphrey sat silent, looking on the ground, while the Squire, with a troubled look on his face, waited for him to speak.