“Nothing of late, but you told me of the dishonour, of the wrong——”
Mrs. Saltren uttered a cry of horror.
“Stephen, for God’s sake!—you do not mean?—you know, you know that I named no names.”
“I knew, Marianne, to whom you referred. I knew it at once. Then I understood why you gave your son the Christian name he bears.”
“Oh, Stephen, it was not that.”
“Yes, Marianne, it was. It all hangs together. I saw how he, Lord Lamerton, was constrained to make much of the boy, to spend money on him, to educate and make a gentleman of him, and take him into his house.”
“Stephen! Stephen! this is all a mistake.”
“No, Marianne, it is no mistake. I see it all as plainly as I saw the angel flying in the midst of heaven bearing the Everlasting Gospel in his right hand, which he cast into the water before me.”
“I was talking nonsense. I am—Oh, Stephen! What did you say?—he—Lord Lamerton is not dead?”
“He is dead. He is lying dead on the path.”