Having washed the blood from his face, Donal sought Simmons.
“His lordship can’t see you now, I am sure, sir,” answered the butler; “lord Forgue is with him.”
Donal turned and went straight up to lord Morven’s apartment. As he passed the door of his bedroom opening on the corridor, he heard voices in debate. He entered the sitting-room. There was no one there. It was not a time for ceremony. He knocked at the door of the bedroom. The voices within were loud, and no answer came. He knocked again, and received an angry permission to enter. He entered, closed the door behind him, and stood in sight of his lordship, waiting what should follow.
Lord Morven was sitting up in bed, his face so pale and distorted that Donal thought elsewhere he should hardly have recognized it. The bed was a large four-post bed; its curtains were drawn close to the posts, admitting as much air as possible. At the foot of it stood lord Forgue, his handsome, shallow face flushed with anger, his right arm straight down by his side, and the hand of it clenched hard. He turned when Donal entered. A fiercer flush overspread his face, but almost immediately the look of rage yielded to one of determined insult. Possibly even the appearance of Donal was a relief to being alone with his father.
“Mr. Grant,” stammered his lordship, speaking with pain, “you are well come!—just in time to hear a father curse his son!”
“Even such a threat shall not make me play a dishonourable part!” said Forgue, looking however anything but honourable, for the heart, not the brain, moulds the expression.
“Mr. Grant,” resumed the father, “I have found you a man of sense and refinement! If you had been tutor to this degenerate boy, the worst trouble of my life would not have overtaken me!”
Forgue’s lip curled, but he did not speak, and his father went on.
“Here is this fellow come to tell me to my face that he intends the ruin and disgrace of the family by a low marriage!”
“It will not be the first time it has been so disgraced!” retorted the son, “—if fresh peasant-blood be indeed a disgrace to any family!”