“I think, madam, you must tell what you can,” he resumed, scarcely knowing which to bring uppermost, his anxiety for Hugh or his lofty, scornful anger. “Is the man a relative of yours?”
“No, not of mine. Oh, Joseph, please don’t be angry with me! Not of mine, but of yours.”
“Of mine!” cried proud Tod. “Thank you, Mrs. Todhetley.”
“His name is Arne,” she whispered.
“What!” shouted Tod.
“Joseph, indeed it is. Alfred Arne.”
Had Tod been shot by a cannon-ball, he could hardly have been more completely struck into himself; doubled up, so to say. His mother had been an Arne; and he well remembered to have heard of an ill-doing mauvais sujet of a half-brother of hers, called Alfred, who brought nothing but trouble and disgrace on all connected with him. There ensued a silence, interrupted only by Mrs. Todhetley’s tears. Tod was looking white in the moonlight.
“So it seems it is my affair!” he suddenly said; but though he drew up his head, all his fierce spirit seemed to have gone out of him. “You can have no objection to speak fully now.”
And Mrs. Todhetley, partly because of her unresisting nature, partly in her fear for Hugh, obeyed him.
“I had seen Mr. Arne once before,” she began. “It was the year that I first went home to Dyke Manor. He made his appearance there, not openly, but just as he has made it here now. His object was to get money from the Squire to go abroad with. And at length he did get it. But it put your father very much out; made him ill, in fact; and I believe he took a sort of vow, in his haste and vexation, to give Alfred Arne into custody if he ever came within reach of him again. I think—I fear—he always has something or other hanging over his head worse than debt; and for that reason can never show himself by daylight without danger.”