“Tush! you faint rogue. My heart sings like a cricket. Sir David and Captain Luvaine are gone to explore. We will have the laugh of them when they return.”
“Are they away, sir?”
Something of the familiar look of nervousness and hesitation came to his face.
“What is it, Whimple?”
The man burst out all at once:
“Let me take the opportunity, now and for ever, to ease my heart of the last of its burden—to tell my dear master all that I have so long withheld from him.”
“You wish to?”
“I have always wished to; but while she lived—sir, she was my mother, and it were bitter that a son should record his mother’s shame.”
He turned away his head, so that his face fell into shadow.
“The wrong she suffered was at the hands of my father that was murdered and strung up on the downs.”