"Ay, Charley--Charley Williams. Oh I know him, too," with vulgar triumph. "I have not been hanging about this house for two days for nothing. He has been here heaps of times! What you two are doing together beats me, I confess. But I am certain of this, that I have caught you both--killed two birds with one stone."
It was the Archdeacon's turn to fall back, aghast. The light that shone upon him with those words so blinded him that every spark of his anger paled and dwindled before it. His son, Charles Williams? He sought in that son's eyes some gleam of denial. But Jack's eyes avoided his; Jack's downcast air seemed only too strongly to confirm the charge. The shock was a severe one, taking from him all thought of himself. The why and wherefore of his presence there could never again be questioned. A real sorrow, a real trouble, gave him courage. "Jack!" he said, "we had better go from here. Come with me. For you, sir," he continued, turning to the actor, "your suspicions are natural to you. Nothing I can say will remove them. So be it. They affect me not one whit. It is enough for me that I came here in all honour, and with an honourable purpose."
"Indeed," replied Mr. Kent mockingly. "Indeed? And your son, Mr. Charles Jack Williams Yale, Archdeacon? No doubt you will answer for him, as he has not got a word to say for himself? He, too, came with an honourable purpose, I suppose? Oh yes, of course; we are all honourable men!"
For an instant the Archdeacon quailed. He saw the pitfall dug before him. He knew all that his answer would imply of disappointed hopes and a vain ambition. He recognised all that might be made of it by his listeners, friend or foe, and he blenched. But the cynical eye and sneering lip of the wretch recalled him to himself. Nay, he seemed to rise above himself, as he replied more sternly, "Yes, sir; I will answer for my son, as for myself! I will answer for him that he came here in all honour."
The man sneered still. But he knew better things if he did not ensue them, and he stood aside with secret respect and let the two go unmolested.
"Sir," Jack said, when they had walked halfway down the street in silence, which his father showed no sign of breaking, "you are thinking more ill of me than I deserve."
"You gave a false name," the Archdeacon snarled.
"Not in a sense--not wilfully, I mean. I wrote a play some time ago, and, as is usual for professional men, I submitted it under a nom de plume. I was known as Charles Williams at the theatre, and I had no more idea of doing wrong when I was introduced to Grissel in that name than I have now."
"I hope not," the Archdeacon said grimly. He was not a man to go back from an engagement. "I trust not," he added with a bitterness. "You may break your word to the girl if you please, but I will not break mine to the mother. So help me Heaven!"
"Sir," Jack said, his utterance a little husky, "God bless you! She is a good girl, and some day she will honour you as I do."