The letter tumbled from his hand. He caught the handle of the door as though he would tear it from its socket, but his voice, when at last it came, was quiet, almost his ordinary voice.
"His name is never to be mentioned in this house again."
"What has he done?"
"That's enough. What I say. His name is never to be mentioned again."
The two women stared at him. He seemed to come down from a great height, turned and went, very carefully closing the door behind him.
He had left the letter on the floor. Mrs. Brandon went and picked it up.
"Oh, mother, what has Falk done?" Joan asked.
The bells danced all over the room.
Brandon went downstairs, back into his study, closing his door, shutting himself in. He stayed in the middle of the room, saying aloud:
"Never his name again.... Never his name again." The actual sound of the words echoing back to him lifted him up as though out of very deep water. Then he was aware, as one is in the first clear moment after a great shock, of a number of things at the same time. He hated his son because his son had disgraced him and his name for ever. He loved his son, never before so deeply and so dearly as now. He was his only son, and there was none other. His son had gone off with the daughter of the worst publican in the place, and so had shamed him before them all. Falk (he arrived in his mind suddenly at the name with a little shiver that hurt horribly) would never be there any more, would never be about the house, would never laugh and be angry and be funny any more. (Behind this thought was a long train of pictures of Falk as a boy, as a baby, as a child, pictures that he kept back with a great gesture of the will.) In the town they would all be talking, they were talking already. They must be stopped from talking; they must not know. He must lie; they must all lie. But how could they be stopped from knowing when he had gone off with the publican's daughter? They would all know.... They would laugh...They would laugh. He would not be able to go down the street without their laughter.