So Bab found herself left alone with that grim, dark figure lying there—her grandfather.
"Come closer!" rumbled Beeston. "I want to look at you!"
A pause followed. Her heart beating thickly, Bab drew nearer to the bed, and as she stood there gazing down at the swart, fierce face staring darkly up at hers, pity for an instant welled into her heart. This was her father's father, she told herself; and troubled, she began to see now that if this masterful, unconquerable man had ruined others' happiness in his life, he had ruined his own as well.
The knotted hand upon the counterpane reached out suddenly.
"They say you're my son's child," said Peter Beeston. "Well, are you?"
His voice carried in it a note of intimidation, of truculent disbelief, but now she felt no fear of him. The hand that held hers she could feel quiver too.
"Yes," she said.
Again a pause. He wet his lips, his tongue running on them dryly, eagerly; and then of a sudden his eyes left hers and went drifting toward the ceiling. His voice when again he spoke broke thickly.
"Tell me about him, about my son!" said Beeston.