Hugh Ritson's breath came in gusts through his quivering, unseen lips.
"Bonnithorne, it cannot be—it is mere coincidence, seductive, damning coincidence. My mother knows all. If it were true that Paul was the son of Lowther, she would know that Paul and Greta must be half-brother and half-sister. She would stop their unnatural union."
"And do you think I have waited until now to sound that shoal water with a cautious plummet? Your mother is as ignorant of the propinquity as Greta herself. Lowther was dead before your family settled in Newlands. The families never once came together while the widow lived. And now not a relative survives who can tell the story."
"Parson Christian?" said Hugh Ritson.
"A great child just out of swaddling-clothes!"
"Then the secret rests with you and me, Bonnithorne?"
"Who else? The marriage must not come off. Greta is Paul's half-sister, but she is no relative of yours—"
"You are right, Bonnithorne," Hugh Ritson broke in; "the marriage is against nature."
"And the first step toward stopping it is to stop the will."
"Then why are you here?"