Barron's look flashed.
"You gave me your promise"—he said imperiously—"before I told you this story—that you would not communicate it without my permission. I withhold the permission."
"Then you must go yourself," said the young man vehemently—"You must!"
"I am not altogether unwilling to go," said Barron slowly. "But I shall choose my own time."
And as he raised his cold eyes upon his son it pleased his spirit of intrigue, and of domination through intrigue, that he had already received a letter from Flaxman giving precisely opposite advice, and did not intend to tell Stephen anything about it. Stephen's impulsive candour, however, appealed to him much more than Flaxman's reticence. It would indeed be physically and morally impossible for him—anonymous letters or no—to lock the scandal much longer within his own breast. It had become a living and burning thing, like some wild creature straining at a leash.
* * * * *
A little while later Stephen found himself alone. He believed himself to have got an undertaking from his father that Meynell should be communicated with promptly—perhaps that very evening. But the terms of the promise were not very clear; and the young man's mind was full of a seething wrath and unhappiness. If the story were true, so far as Hester and her unacknowledged mother were concerned—and, as we have seen, there was that in his long and intimate knowledge of Hester's situation which, as he listened, had suddenly fused and flashed in a most unwilling conviction—then, what dire, what pitiful need, on their part, of protection and of help! If indeed any friendly consideration for him, Stephen, had entered into Meynell's conduct, the young man angrily resented the fact.
He paced up and down the library for a time, divided thus between a fierce contempt for Meynell's slanderers and a passionate pity for Hester.
His father had gone to Markborough. Theresa was, he believed, in the garden giving orders. Presently the clock on the bookcase struck three, and Stephen awoke with a start to the engagements of the day.
He was in the act of opening the library door when he suddenly remembered—Maurice!