"Mr. Audley, you are mad!" exclaimed Harcourt Talboys; "you are mad, or else you are commissioned by your friend to play upon my feelings. I protest against this proceeding as a conspiracy, and I—I revoke my intended forgiveness of the person who was once my son!"
He was himself again as he said this. The blow had been a sharp one, but its effect had been momentary.
"It is far from my wish to alarm you unnecessarily, sir," answered Robert. "Heaven grant that you may be right and I wrong. I pray for it, but I cannot think it—I cannot even hope it. I come to you for advice. I will state to you plainly and dispassionately the circumstances which have aroused my suspicions. If you say those suspicions are foolish and unfounded I am ready to submit to your better judgment. I will leave England; and I abandon my search for the evidence wanting to—to confirm my fears. If you say go on, I will go on."
Nothing could be more gratifying to the vanity of Mr. Harcourt Talboys than this appeal. He declared himself ready to listen to all that Robert might have to say, and ready to assist him to the uttermost of his power.
He laid some stress upon this last assurance, deprecating the value of his advice with an affectation that was as transparent as his vanity itself.
Robert Audley drew his chair nearer to that of Mr. Talboys, and commenced a minutely detailed account of all that had occurred to George from the time of his arrival in England to the hour of his disappearance, as well as all that had occurred since his disappearance in any way touching upon that particular subject. Harcourt Talboys listened with demonstrative attention, now and then interrupting the speaker to ask some magisterial kind of question. Clara Talboys never once lifted her face from her clasped hands.
The hands of the clock pointed to a quarter past eleven when Robert began his story. The clock struck twelve as he finished.
He had carefully suppressed the names of his uncle and his uncle's wife in relating the circumstances in which they had been concerned.
"Now, sir," he said, when the story had been told, "I await your decision. You have heard my reasons for coming to this terrible conclusion. In what manner do these reasons influence you?"
"They don't in any way turn me from my previous opinion," answered Mr. Harcourt Talboys, with the unreasoning pride of an obstinate man. "I still think, as I thought before, that my son is alive, and that his disappearance is a conspiracy against myself. I decline to become the victim of that conspiracy."