“Let me go with you to your room!” cried Stephen, with a sudden feeling of great tenderness, but Benson waved him away with a tremulous hand.
“Good-night,” he murmured in a broken voice, and went from the room.
Stephen heard his slow step in the hall, his slow step as he mounted the stairs, and knew that he was clinging weakly to the hand-rail as he climbed. He threw himself down in his chair. He had done all they had demanded of him; and he felt that in doing this he had dealt a mortal blow to the man, who more than any other, claimed his love and faith. In that moment of shame and great bitterness, he hated his aunt, he hated Wade, even as he hated and despised himself.
But what if Benson offered no explanation, what if he refused to see Wade or his aunt; and he believed him capable of some such course of action; the hideous thing would have to go forward; his aunt would be urged on by Wade's implacable zeal. He sunk his head in his hands, and endeavoured to think of some way in which matters could be adjusted. He had confidently expected Benson to offer an explanation that would be full and conclusive, and show luminously the utter futility of further action; but he had not done this.
“He knows it is not necessary with me,” the boy thought generously. “He knows just where I stand.” Yet he was far from satisfied. Benson owed it both to himself and to his aunt, to explain the whole circumstance of the sale of the land, and his part in it; otherwise, and the conviction made him sick and dizzy, his aunt's only course would be to take the case into the courts, and there force the explanation from him that he was unwilling to make. He thought he understood Benson's pride, and his sense of offended honour; he could sympathize with him here fully, but he felt that it was not wise to preserve silence in the face of these charges; he must be made to see this; in the morning when he was calmer and less shaken by his emotion he would himself tell him.
And in the morning Benson ate his eggs and toast, and drank his coffee, in placid dignity and apparently at peace with all the world, but under his calm of manner there lurked an austerity that warned Stephen that he must not revive the subject of the preceding evening.
Benson was in haste to quit the house, and Stephen finished his breakfast with no companion but his own troubled thoughts. He felt the need of some one with whom he could talk, and decided that he would see Wade at once and tell him what had happened. He wanted to learn what Ben would do now that Benson had declined to make any explanation.
Early as it was, he found Wade at his office, but he had evidently not taken up the business of the day for he was in his shirt-sleeves and smoking a cob pipe; his feet rested on the corner of his desk, and his chair was comfortably tilted at a convenient angle. When Stephen entered the room, the unusual gravity of his aspect told Wade that he had a purpose in his call, and he guessed the purpose. He brought his feet down with a thud to the floor, and slewed his chair around until he faced his caller.
“Well, what's wrong, Landray?” he asked briskly. “First though make yourself comfortable, will you smoke?”
“Everything's wrong,” said Stephen shortly, as he threw himself down in a chair.