He didn’t want a servant to go rushing up with, ‘Here’s Master George come back!’ and all that nonsense. He hated a fuss, and he had an idea that he was in a very humiliating position.
Besides, even if his father gave him what he wanted, it was better he should come and go unseen, except by Marks.
The fact remained that he had been connected with a gang of swindlers, and there was no knowing where or how he might be traced when once inquiry was set on foot.
The past, the present, and the future all flashed through his mind, as, with hesitating steps, he walked up towards the hall.
‘But for Bess,’ he thought, ‘I’d have had a desperate try to do without him. But for Bess——’
He stopped suddenly.
His great difficulty all along had been what to do with Bess. But for the present was not that fear removed? Was she not safe beneath her father’s roof? Where better could she be than that?
Swiftly he reviewed the whole situation. Bess being at home might stay there a little while. That would give him time. He need not creep into his father’s house like a thief. Might he not write to him first? He could say what he wanted to say so much better in a letter, and there would be less humiliation.
At that moment his fate trembled in the balance.
If he had gone on boldly and seen his father, all might have been well.