"You spoke"—Bulstrode fetched him back—"of your father and your brother; was there no one else?"
The younger man looked up without reply.
"There has been, then, no more kindly influence in your life—no sister—no woman?"
Bulstrode brought out the words; in his judgment they meant so very much. He saw a change cross the other's face.
"I fancy there are not many men who haven't had a woman in their lives for good or bad," he said, with a short laugh.
"Well," urged the gentleman, gently, "and for what was this woman?"
As if he repelled the insistence, the young fellow stammered:
"I say, this putting a fellow on the rack——"
But Bulstrode leaned forward in his chair and rested his hand on his companion's knee and pleaded:
"Speak out frankly—frankly—I believe I shall understand; it will free your heart to speak. This influence which to a man should be the best—the best—what was it to you?" Bulstrode sat back and waited, and the other man seemed quite lost in melancholy meditations for some few seconds. Then Bulstrode put it: "For a young man, no matter how wild, to leave his home under the misapprehension you claim:—for him to make no effort to reinstate himself: with no attempt at justice: for him to become a wanderer—there must be an extraordinary reason, almost an improbable one——"