"Oh, I remember, by-the-by," said that young lady, three minutes later, having really said adieu all round to the family; including Dolly, who had suddenly awakened to the position, and overtaken her at the foot of the stairs. "I remember there was something else I wanted to ask you, Aunt Maria. Did Mrs. Prichard ever talk to you about her son?"
Was it wonderful that Aunt M'riar should start and flinch from speech, and that Uncle Mo should look preoccupied about everything outside the conversation? Can you imagine the sort of feeling an intensely truthful person like Aunt M'riar would have under such circumstances? How could she, without feeling like duplicity itself, talk about this son as though he were unknown to her, when his foul presence still hung about the room he had quitted less than an hour since? That fact, and that she had seen him, then and there, face to face with her beautiful questioner, weighed heavier on her at that moment than her own terrible relation to him, a discarded wife oppressed by an uncancelled marriage.
She had got to answer that question. "Mrs. Prichard has a son," she said. "But he's no good." This came with a jerk—perhaps with a weak hope that it might eject him from the conversation.
"She hasn't set eyes on him, didn't she say, for years past?" said old Mo, seeing that M'riar wanted help. Also with a hope of eliminating the convict. "Didn't even know whether he was living or dead, did she?"
The reply, after consideration, was:—"No-o! She said that."
And then Gwen looked from one to the other. "Oh-h!" said she. "Then probably the man was her son.... Look here! I must read you the postscript I left out." She reopened Mrs. Thrale's letter, and read that the writer's mother had been much upset by a man who laid claim to being Mrs. Prichard's son. As her eyes were on the letter, she did not see the glance of reciprocal intelligence that passed between her two listeners. But she looked up after the last word of the postscript in time to see the effect of the dog at Strides Cottage. Even as her father had been influenced, so was Uncle Mo. He appeared to breathe freer for that dog. It struck Gwen that Aunt M'riar seemed a little unenquiring and uncommunicative about this son of Mrs. Prichard's, considering all the circumstances.
When Gwen had departed, Aunt M'riar, seeing perhaps interrogation in Mo's eyes, stopped it by saying:—"Don't you ask me no more questions, not till these children are clear off to bed. I'll tell after supper." And then, just that moment, Mr. Alibone looked in, and was greatly impressed by Dave and Dolly's dramatic account of their visitor. "I've seen her, don't you know?" he said. "When you was put about to get that lock open t'other day. She's one among a million. If I was a blooming young Marquish, I should just knock at her door till she had me moved on. That's what, Mo. So might you, old man." To which Uncle Mo replied:—"They've stood us over too long, Jerry. If they don't look alive, they won't get a chance to make either of us a Marquish. I expect they're just marking time." Which Dave listened to with silent, large-eyed gravity. Some time after he expressed curiosity about the prospects of these Marquisates, and made inquiry touching the relation "marking time" had to them. Uncle Mo responded that it wouldn't be so very long now, and described the ceremonies that would accompany it—something like Lord Mayor's Show, with a flavour of Guy Fawkes Day.
However, Dave and Dolly went to bed this evening without even that inaccurate enlightenment. And presently Mr. Alibone, detecting his friend's meaning when he said he was deadly sleepy somehow to-night, took his leave and went away to finish his last pipe at The Sun.
And then Mo and M'riar were left to resume the day, and make out its meaning. "How long had the feller been here?" he asked, in order to begin somewhere.