“Yes,” said Garstang, quietly, and without a trace of anger, though his tone was full of contempt; “I told you why.”
“Yes, and by what right did you interfere? Some foolish romping connected with a boy and girl love, I suppose. How dared you interfere?”
“Boy and girl love!” cried Garstang, scornfully, as he laid one hand upon Kate’s head and pressed it to his shoulder, where she nestled and hid her face. “Shame upon you both; it was scandalous!”
“Shame upon us? What do you mean, sir? What do you mean?—Will you come away from him, Kate?”
“I mean this,” said Garstang, with his arm firmly round the poor girl’s waist, “that you and your wife have failed utterly in your duties towards this poor suffering child.”
“It isn’t true,” cried Mrs Wilton. “We’ve treated her as if she were our own daughter; and my poor boy told me how he loved her, and he had only just come to talk to her for a bit. Oh, Claud, my darling! my precious boy!”
“Did I not tell you that your darling—your precious boy—was insulting her grievously? Shame upon you, woman,” cried Garstang. “It needed no words of mine to explain what had taken place. Your own woman’s nature ought to have revolted against such an outrage to the weak invalid placed by her poor father’s will in your care.”
“Don’t you speak to my wife like that!” cried Wilton, angrily.
“I will speak to your wife like that, and to you as well. I forbore to speak before: I had no right; but do you think I have been blind to the scandal going on here? The will gives you full charge of the poor child and her fortune, and what do I find when I come down? A dastardly cruel plot to ensnare her—to force on a union with an unmannerly, brutally coarse young ruffian, that he may—that you may, for your own needs and ends, lawfully gain possession of the fortune, to scatter to the winds.”
“It’s a lie—it’s a lie!” roared Wilton.