"When you find," said his father, with deliberation, "two people wandering from town to town, without any visible means of subsistence, you naturally wonder how they manage to live. Very well. But now, if you discover they have a pretty knack of falling in with this or that rich young gentleman, and allowing him to pay for them on all occasions, isn't the mystery partly solved? I am informed that these two people and yourself have been in the habit for a considerable time back of dining together in the evening—indeed, I have the name of the restaurant. Now I wish to ask you this question point-blank: is it not the fact that in every case you have paid?"
Vincent did not answer; he was not thinking of himself at all; nor yet of the direct question that had been put to him. A terrible wave of bewilderment had passed over him; his heart seemed to have within it but one sudden cry—'Maisrie—Maisrie—why were you driving—with that stranger?'—and all the world grew black with a horror of doubt and despair. He thought of the young man driving along the King's Road in Brighton: was there another paying for those two now?—had they another friend now to accompany them every evening? And Maisrie? But all this wild agony lasted only a moment. He cast this palsy of the brain behind him. His better self rose confident and triumphant—though there was still a strange look left in his eyes.
"Paid?" he said, with a kind of scornful impatience. "Who paid? Oh, I did—mostly. What about that? That is nothing—a few shillings—I found it pleasanter not to have to settle bills before a young lady; and of course she did not know who paid; I made an arrangement——"
"An arrangement by which you gave those people their dinner for nothing for months and months!"
"And what then?"
For Vincent had entirely recovered his self-command: he affected to regard this story that had been told him as quite unworthy of serious attention. It was his father who was growing exasperated.
"Have you taken leave of your senses?" Mr. Harris demanded. "Is it nothing that you yourself have shown this old man to be a pauper, getting his dinner on charity every evening? And what better was the girl? She must have known! Do you imagine she was not aware of his receiving money for bogus books that he never meant to publish; and of his inveigling soft-headed Scotchmen—I suppose there must be one here and there—into giving him a loan because of his sham patriotism? And these are the people you have chosen to consort with all this time; and this is the girl you would bring into your family—you would introduce to your friends as your wife! But you cannot be so mad! You may pretend indifference: you cannot be indifferent. You may consider it fine and heroic to disbelieve the clearest evidence: the world, on the other hand, is apt to say that it is only a fool and an idiot who keeps his eyes shut and walks into a trap blindfolded. And—and I do think, when you begin to reflect, that your own common-sense will come to your aid."
He turned to the mantel-piece, and took from it some papers.
"I have given you," he continued, "the sum and substance of the enquiries I have made, in this country and in America. I can show you here still further details; but before allowing you to examine these communications, I must exact a promise that they shall be treated as in strictest confidence."
"Thank you," said Vincent, "I will not trouble you. I can guess at the kind of creature who would accept such a task, and at his interpretation of any facts that might come across him."