Barron mechanically waved the speaker to a chair, and sat down himself. Meynell seemed to pause a moment, his eyes on the ground. Then suddenly he raised them.
"Mr. Barron, what I have come to say will be a shock to you. I have discovered the author of the anonymous letters which have now for nearly three months been defiling this parish and diocese."
Barron's sudden movement showed the effect of the words. But he held himself well in hand.
"I congratulate you," he said coldly. "It is what we have all been trying to discover."
"But the discovery will be painful to you. For the author of these letters, Mr. Barron—is—your son Maurice."
At these words, spoken with an indescribable intensity and firmness,
Barron sprang from, his seat.
"It was not necessary, I think, sir, to come to my house in order to insult my family and myself! It would have been better to write. And you may be very sure that if you cannot punish your slanderers we can—and will!"
His attitude expressed a quivering fury. Meynell took a packet from his breast-pocket and quietly laid it on the table beside him.
"In this envelope you will find a document—a confession of a piece of wrongdoing on Maurice's part of which I believe you have never been informed. His poor sister concealed it—and paid for it. Do you remember, three years ago, the letting loose of some valuable young horses from Farmer Grange's stables—the hue and cry after them—and the difficulty there was in recapturing them on the Chase?"
Barron stared at the speaker—speechless.