"If I thought you were deceiving me, Alf," said Mr. Sheldrake, "I should know what to do."
"What makes you speak in this way to me?" Alfred mustered up sufficient courage to ask. "If you doubt me, try me."
"I will. I was at your house to-day, as I have told you. I offered your grandfather assistance; he declined it. Both he and Lily were anything but cordial to me. For the old man I don't care one jot; but he influences Lily, and has power over her. She follows the cue he gives her. The old man said they wanted for nothing; that they had a friend, who had come forward at the nick of time--a friend, said that railway man's little girl, that they all loved--old man, little girl, Lily, and all."
Mr. Sheldrake bit his lips at the remembrance of the blush which had come to Lily's cheek when Pollypod asked her if she didn't love this friend.
"Children talk all sorts of nonsense," said Alfred, "and Polly more than most children."
"Perhaps; but that isn't the question just now. Who is this friend, this paragon, this model of goodness, that everybody loves?"
Alfred hesitated for one moment only. Felix asked them, as a particular favour, not to mention his name as having befriended them, and they had given him the promise. But Alfred felt that to hesitate now, and to beat about the bush with Mr. Sheldrake in that gentleman's present humour, would be fatal to him. So he answered,
"His name is Felix Creamwell. He in an old acquaintance."
"I thought so; the same young cub who interrupted my conversation with Lily after we came from the theatre. What is the special tie that binds him to your people?"
This direct questioning of Felix s motive for befriending them staggered Alfred. It had never occurred to him before; and with the sudden introduction of the subject came a glimpse of light--a new revelation--which enabled him but dimly at present to place a possible correct construction on Lily's unhappiness. Policy impelled him to reply,