"Here," Dick answered, from the distant corner where he was crouching behind an old velvet settee. He was not crying, but he felt as though he had been struck a blow which had stunned him. He turned a white face with a pair of miserable eyes towards Sir Richard as he approached.
"Dick, don't look like that!" Sir Richard said, with an unusually gentle intonation in his voice. "Lionel had no right to speak as he did of—of your mother. He said it to anger you. Think no more of it."
"Wasn't it true?" Dick asked, his countenance brightening; then, as his grandfather hesitated to reply, he continued in a broken, hopeless tone: "Yes, I know it's true! And that's why father never spoke of you! That's why I couldn't understand! Oh, it's dreadful—dreadful! Oh, how can you be so wicked as to hate mother! Oh, mother! mother!" —and the little boy sobbed aloud.
"Don't, child, don't!" Sir Richard exclaimed. He was strangely moved by the intensity of Dick's grief and despair. "Don't, don't!" he said again.
Dick raised his head and looked at him suddenly with an ominous flash in his tearful eyes, whilst he slowly came out of the corner, and stood in front of his grandfather—a small forlorn figure with a stern, set face.
"I'm going," he said, "and I'm never coming to see you again. She—she said I was to treat you with respect, and I can't—not now I know you hate her! I am very sorry, because I—I liked you—rather—I didn't at first, you know, because I thought you were cross and disagreeable; but you've been kind to me. I'm never coming here again—I'll stay at home with Aunt Mary Ann and Uncle Theophilus—they love her—and I wish I'd never seen you, or the Manor House, or Lionel!"
"Stop, stop!" interposed Sir Richard hastily. He saw the child was trembling with passion, and deep in his heart he sympathised with him, and admired him for his plain speaking. "Don't be hasty, Dick! There are many things little boys can't understand about their elders!"
"Why do you hate her?" Dick enquired suddenly, his accusing eyes still fixed on his grandfather's face. "There's no one like mother, no one! Father says so too! He ought to know! Oh, why did they ever send me to England away from them both!"
"I—I hardly knew your mother," Sir Richard said, "and—and I have little doubt now that she is all you say. Did you ever hear me speak a word against her?"
"No," the little boy acknowledged. "You couldn't," he added quickly, "not without you said what wasn't true, and I don't think you tell stories—I know you don't!"