"I know which you are, at all events," replied Cleek, with still another laugh. "You have some most original ideas of the workings of the law, it must be admitted, if you think Scotland Yard affairs can be settled in that way."
"You won't come out and stand up to me like a man, then?"
"No, I won't; because if I did I should catch myself wanting to clap you on the back and shake hands with you, and wishing to heaven that I were your father. But—wait—stop! You needn't go off like a blessed skyrocket, my lad. There's still a way to do very much what you have proposed, and that I was about to mention when you tore at me about Lady Katharine. I said, if you remember, that you might go farther than simply give me your word of honour with regard to the gagging part of the matter, and might save us both a lot of trouble and discomfort."
"Yes, I know you did. Well, what of it? What trouble and discomfort can be saved?"
"A great deal if you are wise as well as loyal, my boy. It couldn't be a very pleasant experience for you to pass the night in a place like this. Nevertheless, it is absolutely imperative that you should not return to your home to-night, and that your stepmother should have no hint of where you had gone or what had become of you."
"Why?"
"That's my affair, and you will have to pardon me if I keep it to myself. Now, then, why not make matters easier and pleasanter for you and for me by giving me your word of honour that if I let you go free from this place, and promise not to say one word of what I overheard pass between you and Lady Katharine Fordham, you will secretly journey up to London, stop there the night, and neither by word, nor deed will let a hint of your whereabouts or of what has passed between us this evening get to the ears or the eyes of any one at Clavering Close? Come now; that's a fair proposition, is it not?"
"I don't know; I can't think what's at the bottom of it. Good Lord!"—with a sudden flash of suspicion "you don't mean that you suspect that Lady Clavering, my stepmother—and just because I said she was out on the Common last night? If that's your game—— Look here, she's as pure as ice and as good as gold, my stepmother, and my dear old dad loves her as she deserves to be loved. If you've hatched up some crazy idea of connecting her with this affair simply because De Louvisan was an Austrian and she's an Austrian, too——"
"Oho!" interjected Cleek. "So Lady Clavering is an Austrian, eh? I see! I see!"
"No, you don't. And don't you hint one word against her! So if it's part of your crawling spy business to get me to give my parole so that you may sneak over to Clavering Close and play another of your sneaking abduction tricks on her, just as you have played it on me——"