"Certainly," said Mrs. Bickersteth. "I wish you to consult your own feelings only. I wish to be just, Mr. Ringrose, and—and to meet your ideas. If you are going to town, any time before ten o'clock will be time enough for your return."
Harry expressed his gratitude, and said that in that case it would be unnecessary for him to absent himself before the close of afternoon school; nor did he do so; for he was not going to town at all.
He was going straight to Richmond Hill, to put the whole matter before Gordon Lowndes, and to beg the explanation he felt certain the other could give. Why should Scrafton have lost his colour and his temper at the bare mention of the name of Ringrose? Was it true that he knew that name already "to his cost"? Then how did he know it to his cost, and since when, and what was the subtle connection between Mr. Ringrose and this same Scrafton? Was Lowndes aware of any?
Yes, there was something that Lowndes knew, something that he had known on the Saturday afternoon, something to account for his surprise on learning to what school Harry had gone as master. He had indignantly denied all knowledge of Scrafton, but Harry could no longer accept that gratuitous and inexplicable repudiation. It was the very fact that he did know something about Scrafton, something which he wished to keep to himself, that had made him angrily disclaim such knowledge.
Harry was coming back to his old idea that Lowndes had been more deeply implicated in his father's flight than anybody supposed. He no longer suspected foul play—that was impossible in the face of the letter from Dieppe—but he did suspect complicity on the part of Lowndes. What if Lowndes had swindled wholesale in the ironmaster's name, and what if Scrafton were one of his victims?
What if Lowndes could tell him where his father lay in hiding abroad!
The thought brought a happy moment and an hour of bitterness; no, it were better they should never know; better still if he were dead. And the bitter hour that followed was the last and the loveliest of a warm September day; and Harry Ringrose spent it in walking across Ham Common and through Richmond Park, in the mellow sunset, on his way to Richmond Hill.
When he got there it was dusk, and two men were pacing up and down the little garden in front of Lowndes's house. Harry paused at the gate. The men had their heads close together, and were conversing so earnestly that they never saw him. They were Lowndes and Scrafton.
Harry stepped back without a sound. All his suppositions had been built upon the hypothesis that these two were enemies; it had never entered his head that they might be friends. To find them together was the last thing he had expected, and the discovery chilled him in a way for which he could not instantly account. He knew there was good reason for it, but in his first discomfiture he could not find the reason.
He stole back along the road, a shower of new suspicions sticking like arrows in his soul. The very vagueness of his sensations added to their sickening effect. His brain heaved as though with wine, and when he clapped a hand to his head it came back dripping. He was at the corner of the road before he knew what he was going to do, and there he spent minutes hesitating and considering. Unable to make up his mind, he crossed over and returned to reconnoitre from the other side. To and fro walked Lowndes and Scrafton, on the gravel path in front of the lighted window opposite; and faster than their feet, but lower than their footfalls, went their tongues.