Lord Evelyn nodded. "Quite so; quite so. I understood that. And I didn't mention you to the others. Indeed, I didn't mean to take any notice of you at all; but at the end I changed my mind, and sent for you to come. I believe I'm right in thinking that your wish is to keep out of the way of our family."
"Yes," said Peter.
"You're right. You've been very right indeed. There's nothing else you could have done, all this time." Peter glanced at him quickly, to see what he knew, and saw.
Lord Evelyn saw the questioning glance.
"Oh, yes, yes, boy. Of course, I knew about you and Lucy. I'm not such a blind fool as I've sometimes been thought in the past—eh, Peter Margerison? I always knew you cared for Lucy; and I knew she cared for you. And I knew when she and you all but went off together. I asked Lucy; I can read the child's eyes better than books, you see. I read it, and I asked her, and she admitted it."
"It was you who stopped her," said Peter quietly.
Lord Evelyn tapped his fingers on his chair arm.
"I'm not a moralist; anything but a moralist, y'know. But as a man of the world, with some experience, I knew that couldn't be. So I told her the truth."
"The truth?" Peter wondered.
"Yes, boy, the truth. The only truth that mattered to Lucy. That you couldn't be happy that way. That you loved Denis too much to be happy that way. When I said it, she knew it. 'Deed, I believe she'd known it before, in her heart. So she wrote to you, and ended that foolish idea. You know now that she was right, I think?"