“Why, surely, man,” broke out Bram at last, losing patience at his long tirades of woe and indignation, “it’s better that you should be disfigured than her, at any rate.”
“No, it isn’t,” retorted Theodore sharply. “Claire never cared half as much about her appearance as I did about mine. And, besides,” he went on, with a sudden feeling that he had got hold of a strong argument, “if she had been disfigured, she would have had no temptation to do wrong!”
Bram jumped up, clenching his fist. He could bear no more. With a few jerked-out words to the effect that he would send Joan to get his breakfast, he rushed out of the house.
Poor Claire! Poor little Claire! Was this the creature she had wronged in going away? This shallow, selfish wretch who had turned her out, and who regretted the ministrations of her gentle hands far more than he did the shame her desperate act had drawn down upon her!
Bram went down to the works that morning a different man from what he had been the day before. He was waking from the dull lethargy of grief into which the first discovery of Claire’s flight had thrown him. A smouldering anger against the Cornthwaites, father and son, was taking the place of sullen misery in his breast. He had gathered from Theodore that the elder Mr. Cornthwaite had taken his remonstrances not only coolly, but with something like relief, as if he felt glad of an excuse for getting rid of the relations whose vicinity had been a continual annoyance.
But Bram did not mean to be put off. Josiah, who had not been at the office at all on the previous day, should see him, and answer his questions. And Bram, maturing a grave resolution, strode down into the town with a steady look in his eyes.
Mr. Cornthwaite saw him as soon as he himself arrived, and, evidently with the intention of taking the bull by the horns, spoke to him at once.
“Ah, Elshaw, good-morning. Come in here a moment, please. I want to speak to you.”
Bram followed in silence, and stood within the room with his back to the door, with a stern expression on his pale face.