"Oh, John, John, for God's sake don't say anything more!"
"I must, Elinor. There is but one good life, and that in a dangerous climate, and with all the risks of possible fighting, between the boy and——"
"Don't, don't, John!"
"And he does not know who he is. He is ignorant of everything, even the fact, the great fact, which you have no right to keep from him——"
"John," she cried, starting to her feet, "the boy is mine: I have a right to deal with him as I think best. I will not hear a word you have to say."
"It is vain to say anything," said Mrs. Dennistoun; "she will not hear a word."
"That is all very well, so far as she is concerned," said John, "but I have a part of my own to play. You give me the name of adviser and so forth—a man cannot be your adviser if his mouth is closed before he speaks. I have a right to speak, being summoned for that purpose. I tell you, Elinor, that you have no right to conceal from the boy who he is, and that his father is alive."
She gave a cry as if he had struck her, and shrank away behind her mother, hiding her face in her hands.
"I am, more or less, of your opinion, John. I have told her the same. While he was a baby it mattered nothing, now that he is a rational creature with an opinion of his own, like any one of us——"
"Mother," cried Elinor, "you are unkind. Oh, you are unkind! What did it matter so long as he was a baby? But now he is just at the age when he would be—if you don't wish to drive me out of my senses altogether, don't say a word more to me of this kind."