He went to the table in the window, sat down, unlocked a drawer, took out a cheque-book, and began to write a cheque.
“What did you say was your name?” he asked: “these cheques are all made to order, and I should prefer your drawing the money.”
Richard gave him again the name he had always been known by.
“Tuke! What a beast of a name!” said the baronet. “How do you spell it?”
Richard's face flushed, but he would not willingly show anger with one who had granted the prayer of his sorest need. He spelled the name to him as unconcernedly as he could. But the baronet had a keen ear.
“Oh, you needn't be crusty!” he said. “I meant no harm. One has fancies about names, you know! What did they call your mother before she was married?”
Richard hesitated. He did not want sir Wilton to know who he was. He felt that, the relation between them known by both, he must behave to his father in a way he would not like. But he must, nevertheless, speak the truth! Wherever he had not spoken the truth, he had repented, and been ashamed, and had now come to see that to tell a lie was to step out of the march of the ages led by the great will. “Her name, sir, was Armour,” he said.
“Hey!” cried the baronet with a start. Yet he had all but expected it.
“Yes, sir,—Jane Armour.”
“Jane!” said his father with an accent of scorn. “—Not a bit of it!—Jane!” he repeated, and muttered to himself—“What motive could there be for misinforming the boy as to the Christian name of his mother?”