‘Your mother, sir, if I made no mistake, sir.’ ‘Eh?’ queried Phil, sitting forward in his chair, becoming suddenly sober. ‘The same, sir,’ repeated Peter. ‘And Shepley and my father fell out over my mother, by your way of it, then?’ ‘’Twas that way for certain, sir.’ ‘And what became of my mother, since you know so much, Peter?’ ‘How she came by her death, sir, I have no knowledge, but this I can tell you as the master knew naught of her death till Shepley told him the same. I heard them speak it out. Saith the master, “I shall provide for her,” and saith Shepley, “She wants for naught,” and saith the master, “’Tis I should support her now,” and then saith Shepley, “Anne Champion is dead, and her blood be on you, and on your children,” and with that he walked out of the room and through the hall to the street door, and the whole was over. I made bold to enter the room, and there sat the master white and shakin’ like any leaf. “Sir,” says I, “there hath harm come to you,” but he made little of it, and bade me fetch him some wine. The same I did, and set to straighten the room, that was in a disorder such as never was. The master watched me a minute, and then saith he, “Can you be silent on this, Peter—no word of it to any in the house?” and with that what think you he did, sir? The most of gentlemen would have offered me money; the master he held out his hand to me like any other man. I’ve been silent on it all these years, sir, for that handshake.’ Phil had been listening breathlessly, his quick wits piecing together from Peter’s rather incoherent account some skeleton of the truth. But at this point he fairly laughed. ‘The devil he did!’ he said. ‘Now, was not that like him, Peter? Ah, you are a clever man, my good father!’ Peter smiled indulgently. ‘Now, sir, you do never give the master his due, if I may make bold to say so,’ he began. ‘But to finish with the story, sir. ’Twas not more than six weeks from then that you was brought to the house, sir, and that’s all I do know—but, sir, from it you’ll see how ’twould be if you took up with Miss Carrie Shepley.’ ‘Well, Peter, if the case be so serious as you say, you and Patty should have hesitated ere you introduced us,’ said Phil mischievously. ‘Sir, sir, this is no laughing matter,’ said Peter in a sad tone, for Phil, with the incurable flippancy that characterised him, had burst into a peal of laughter at the man’s grave face. ‘Peter, you are a Methodist; pour me out my wine and go; there is no calculating what will come to me “all along of Carrie,”’ he said. But when Peter had gone Phil rose and stood looking into the glass that hung on the wall, while he examined his features with a new interest. ‘Anne Champion,’ he repeated. And as, for the first time, he uttered his mother’s name a curious thrill passed through him. ‘Poor mother of mine,’ he said, ‘I hope I have more of you in me than of Richard Meadowes.’ CHAPTER XIX