"I did not tell a lie."
"You did. My son was born in lawful wedlock."
"Then why didn't you bring him up yourself?" said Mrs Gabriel, with a sneer. "You gave him to me in London, and made me adopt him. I had to say that he was my nephew. Oh, how you have used me!"
"And I have not done using you. Hold your tongue, or it will be the worse for you. You know the power I have. I will not scruple to use it if you dare to do anything against my orders. Now, you can go. I want to speak to my son alone."
Mrs Gabriel seemed inclined to dispute this order, but a look from her tyrant cowed her. With a defiant flinging up of the head she walked out of the room, and closed the door.
"She will tell the servants," said Leo.
"Oh, no, she won't," said Pratt coolly. "You don't know the power I have over her. She will not dare."
"I don't want to know anything," said Leo, looking down on the ground, with folded arms. "I know quite enough. Are you speaking truly?"
Pratt met his gaze in a perfectly composed manner. "I am speaking the truth," he said; "you are my son, and your mother died two years after you were born. I was then in some danger from a—Well, no matter. To make a long story short, I wanted to procure a home for you where you would be brought up like a gentleman. Having a certain power over Mrs Gabriel, I fixed upon her, and made her tell the story of your being her nephew. She did all I wished, but had I known how she treated you," he muttered, clenching his fist, "I should soon have brought her to her bearings."
"And it was this power that made her introduce you into Colester society?"