"'Private sitting-room, and four candles!' he called out, marching up the stairs, and making me a sign to follow him. Everybody seemed to know him there, and I told them to fetch his things in.
"'No fire! Hot enough already. Put the candles down, and go;' said he to the waiter, and then he locked the door, and threw the key upon the table. It takes a good deal to frighten me, Miss. But I assure you I was trembling; for I never saw such a pair of eyes—not furious, but so desperate; and I should have been but a baby in his hands, for he is bigger than even his father was. Then he pulled out a newspaper, and spread it among the candles.
"'Now, you man of Perlycross,' he cried, 'you that teach the boys, who are going to be grave-robbers,—is this true, or is it all a cursed lie?' Excuse me telling you, Miss, exactly as he said it. 'The Lord in heaven help me, I think I shall go mad, unless you can tell me it is all a wicked lie.' Up and down the room he walked, as if the boards would sink under him; while I was at my wits' ends, as you may well suppose, Miss.
"'I have never heard a word of any of this, Master Tom;' I said, as soon as I had read it; for it was all about something that came on at Perliton before the Magistrates, last Wednesday. 'I have been away in foreign parts.'
"Miss Nicie, he changed to me from that moment. I had not said a word about how long I was away, or anything whatever to deceive him. But he looked at my hat that was lying on a chair, and my cloak that was still on my back, as much as to say—'I ought to have known it;' and then he said, 'Give me your hand, Old Jakes. I beg your pardon a thousand times. What a fool I must be, to think you would ever have allowed it!'
"This put me in a very awkward hole; for I was bound to acknowledge that I had been here, when the thing, he was so wild about, was done. But I let him go on, and have his raving out. For men are pretty much the same as boys; though expecting of their own way more, which I try to take out of the young ones. But a loud singing out, and a little bit of stamping, brings them into more sense of what they be.
"'I landed at Plymouth this morning,' he said, 'after getting a letter, which had been I don't know where, to tell me that my dear father, the best man that ever lived, was dead. I got leave immediately, and came home to comfort my mother and sister, and to attend to all that was needful. I went into the coffee-room, before the coach was ready; and taking up the papers, I find this! They talk of it, as if it was a thing well known, a case of great interest in the county; a mystery they call it, a very lively thing to talk about—The great Perlycross Mystery, in big letters, cried at every corner, made a fine joke of in every dirty pot-house. It seems to have been going on for months. Perhaps it has killed my mother and my sister. It would soon kill me, if I were there, and could do nothing.'
"Here I found a sort of opening; for the tears rolled down his face, as he thought of you, Miss Nicie, and your dear Mamma; and the rage in his heart seemed to turn into grief, and he sat down in one of the trumpery chairs that they make nowadays, and it sprawled and squeaked under him, being such an uncommon fine young man in trouble. So I went up to him, and stood before him, and lifted his hands from his face, as I had done many's the time, when he was a little fellow, and broke his nose perhaps in his bravery. And then he looked up at me quite mild, and said—
"'I believe I am a brute, Jakes. But isn't this enough to make me one?'