Jeremy returned.
"Tom Bonus will bring along our two boxes," he said. "It's very comforting to see faces you know round about you again, and I hope I shan't be called to leave Brent no more. My next job will be tackled with all the determination of a married man, dad; and, if it suits me, I shouldn't wonder if I surprised you."
Mr. Huxam began to collect his shattered wits.
"I don't want no more surprises," he answered. "We'll walk round the long way, and just let me get law and order into the situation afore we go home. I blame you a very great deal; but that's neither here nor there. My rule is to face facts and never waste time thinking how much nicer it would be if they was different. You're married—that's the first thing to grasp—and the second and more important is this that you are now going before your mother, wife in hand, and your mother don't know what you've done."
"We've come home properly worked up to face the music," said Jeremy. "United we stand, dad. We feel that very much indeed; and divided we should have fallen without a doubt. But well we know that there's nothing like the plain, unvarnished truth and——"
"Dry up and listen to me," replied his father. "As nought else will serve but the truth in a case like this, it ain't particular wonderful to hear you say the truth have got to come out. But why you hid the truth, you know; and Jane's told me, so I know also. That's your weak nature, and I'm not troubling myself about you, nor yet this woman, who may very like be too good for you."
"Far from it, Mr. Huxam," said the young wife. "With all his faults, Jeremy's a lot better than me."
"Don't eat humble pie, Jane," said her husband. "That's a thing that never pays with mother. She hates for people to cringe."
"It's your mother and only your mother I'm thinking upon at present," continued Barlow, "and according as your mother receives this blow, so it will be. At best it must shake her to the roots, because it shows up a very dark and unexpected side of you. Cowards are always cunning, and it don't astonish me so much, because it's well in keeping with your character to do a thing behind the scenes you wouldn't dare in the open; but his mother have always had a soft corner for him, Jane—the only soft corner she ever allowed herself for anybody—except her Maker—and so this is going to be an eye-opener for her. And an eye-opener, where the heart is set, always happens to be the most painful sort."
"You're speaking without allowing for the great powers of my wife, dad," murmured Jeremy.