It had been arranged that the last days of February should be spent by Lord George with his mother and sisters at Cross Hall, and that the Dean should run up to town for a week. Lord George went down to Brotherton by a morning train, and the Dean came up on the same afternoon. But the going and coming were so fixed that the two men met at the deanery. Lord George had determined that he would speak fully to the Dean respecting his brother. He was always conscious of the Dean's low birth, remembering, with some slight discomfort, the stable-keeper and the tallow-chandler; and he was a little inclined to resent what he thought to be a disposition on the part of the Dean to domineer. But still the Dean was a practical, sagacious man, in whom he could trust; and the assistance of such a friend was necessary to him. Circumstances had bound him to the Dean, and he was a man not prone to bind himself to many men. He wanted and yet feared the confidence of friendship. He lunched with the Dean, and then told his story. "You know," he said, "that my brother is married?" "Of course, we all heard that." "He was married more than twelve months before he informed us that he was going to be married." "No!" "It was so." "Do you mean, then, that he told you a falsehood?" "His letter to me was very strange, though I did not think much of it at the time. He said, 'I am to be married'--naming no day." "That certainly was--a falsehood, as, at that time, he was married." "I do not know that harsh words will do any good." "Nor I. But it is best, George, that you and I should be quite plain in our words to each other. Placed as he was, and as you were, he was bound to tell you of his marriage as soon as he knew it himself. You had waited till he was between forty and fifty, and, of course, he must feel that what you would do would depend materially upon what he did." "It didn't at all." "And then, having omitted to do his duty, he screens his fault by a----positive misstatement, when his intended return home makes further concealment impossible." "All that, however, is of little moment," said Lord George, who could not but see that the Dean was already complaining that he had been left without information which he ought to have possessed when he was giving his daughter to a probable heir to the title. "There is more than that." "What more?" "He had a son born more than twelve months since." "Who says so?" exclaimed the Dean, jumping up from his chair. "I heard it first,--or rather Mary did,--in common conversation, from an old friend. I then learned the truth from Knox. Though he had told none of us, he had told Knox." "And Knox has known it all through?"