"No one will blame you for marrying the girl you loved," said Percival in his strong voice. "That is exactly what my father did. It is true that you manage matters in a different way, and naturally the result is different." He rose. "I prefer my father's way—result and all." And with a bow to the assembled company young Thorne walked out of the room.
Horace looked round to see how the attack was received—at Aunt Harriet, who was wiping away the quick coming tears; at Hardwicke, who was looking at the door through which Percival had vanished; at Hammond, who came forward a step or two. "I ordered a dog-cart to come over from Fordborough for me," he said. "If you will allow me I will ring and have it brought round."
"You are going?" said Horace.
"We shall just catch the four-o'clock train very comfortably if we go now," Godfrey replied. "Thorne will prefer going by that."
"I see: you take his part. Very well. I suppose sooner or later you must choose between us: as well now as later." Horace rang the bell.
"Horace," said Hammond, dropping his voice, yet speaking in the same tone of authority he had used once before that day, "for the first time in your life Mrs. Middleton is your guest. If you have a spark of right feeling—and you have more than that—you will not make her position here more painful than it must be. We will defer all discussion: there must be a truce while she is here.—My dog-cart," he said over his shoulder to the servant. "It was to come from Fordborough. At once.—Keep out of the way ten minutes hence when your cousin goes," he added to Horace: "it will be best."
The young squire bent his head in sulky acquiescence.
"I shall take Percival with me," said Hammond to Mrs. Middleton as he went by. "He wants to be off, I know, and I shall be of more use with him than here."
He found Percival crushing his things into his little portmanteau and in hot haste to get away from Brackenhill.
"I'm going by the four train," Hammond remarked, "and I've told them you'll drive with me."