The light of innocence died out of the face as suddenly as it had kindled.
"My dear father, I shall never come back. I thought I'd made that very clear to you."
"You never made it clear—your behaviour to me. Not but what I 'ad an idea, which perhaps I need not name. I've never asked what there was at the bottom of that foolish business, and I've never blamed you for it. If it made you act badly to me, I've reason to believe it kept you out of worse mischief."
Keith felt a queer tightening at the heart. He understood that his father was referring darkly to Lucia Harden. He was surprised to find that even this remote and shadowy allusion was more than he could bear. He must call him off that trail; and the best way of doing it was to announce his engagement.
"As you seem to be rather mixed, father, I ought to tell you that I'm engaged to be married. Have been for the last eighteen months."
"Married?" Isaac's face was tense with anxiety; for he could not tell what this news meant for him; whether it would remove his son farther from him, or bring him, beyond all expectation, near.
"May I ask who the lady is? Any of your fine friends in Devonshire?"
Keith was silent, tongue-tied with presentiment of the coming blow. It came.
"I needn't ask. It's that—that Miss 'Arden. I've heard of her."
"As it happens it's somebody you haven't heard of. You may have seen her, though—Miss Flossie Walker."