“It is that some vile wretches are trying to get what they call a warrant against him, and so to put him in jail.”
“Put him in jail? My unfortunate son! What more has he been doing?”
“Nothing at all. And I donʼt believe that he ever did any harm. But what the brutes say is that he did that terrible thing on purpose. Oh, uncle, donʼt look at me like that. How I wish I had never told you!”
Poor Sir Cradockʼs mind was not so clear and strong as it had been, although the rumours scattered by Georgie were shameful exaggerations. The habit of brooding over his grief, whenever he was alone—a habit more and more indulged, as it became a morbid pleasure—the loss moreover of his accustomed exercise, for he never would go out riding now, having no son to ride with him; these, and the ever–present dread of some inevitable inquiry, began to disturb, though not destroy, the delicate fibres of reason, which had not too much room in his brain.
He fell into the depths of an easy–chair, and wondered what it was he had heard. The lids of his mindʼs eye had taken a blink, as will happen sometimes to old people, and to young ones too for that matter; neither was it the first time this thing had befallen him.
Then Eoa told him again what it was, because he made her tell it; and again it shocked him dreadfully; but that time he remembered it.
“And I have no doubt,” continued his niece, with bright tears on her cheeks, “that Mrs. Corklemore herself is at the bottom of it.”
“Georgie! What, my niece Georgie!”
“She is not your niece, Uncle Cradock. I am your niece, and nobody else; and you had better not think of wronging me. If you call her your niece any more, I know I will never call you my uncle. Nasty limy slimy thing! If you would only give me leave to choke her!”
“My darling child,” cried her uncle, who loved her the more (though he knew it not) for siding with his son so, “you are so very hot and hasty. I am sure Mrs. Corklemore speaks of you with the warmest pity and affection.”