"But I'm in a position to prove it," replied the squatter. "I'll give you a particular or two as we walk back to the house. What! you hesitate? Come, come; surely my word is good enough for that! Do be sensible; leave your infernal cats where they are, and come you along with me!" CHAPTER XXII DE MORTUIS The Home Secretary had never spent a more uncomfortable hour. His favourite daughter had stanched her tears, and gone straight to the root of the very delicate matter at issue between them. Much as her tears had depressed him, however, Mr. Sellwood preferred them to the subsequent attitude. It was too independent for his old-fashioned notions, and yet it made him think all the more of Olivia. Indeed she was her father's child in argument--spirited and keen and fair. His point of view she took for granted, and proceeded to expound her own. Much that she said was unanswerable; a little made him fidget--for between the sexes there is no such shyness as that which a father finds in his heart towards his grown-up girls. But a certain bluntness of speech was not the least refreshing trait in Olivia's downright character, and decidedly this was not a matter to be glossed over with synonyms for a spade. She wanted to know how the circumstances of the birth affected the value of the man--and so forth. Mr. Sellwood replied as a man of the world, and detested his replies. But the worst was his guilty knowledge of Jack's flight. This made him detest himself; it made him lie; and it filled him with a relief greater than his surprise when voices came out of the darkness of the drive, and one of them was Jack's. Olivia ran forward. "At last! Oh, Jack, where _have_ you been?" Mr. Sellwood never heard the answer; he was bristling at the touch of Dalrymple, who had led him aside. "Entirely my doing," explained the squatter; "but I can justify it. I mean to do so at once. Am I right in understanding the bar sinister to be your only objection to our friend?" "You may put it so," said Mr. Sellwood shortly. "Then I shall have the pleasure of removing the objection: the bar doesn't exist." "Your grounds for thinking so, Mr. Dalrymple?" "I don't think. I know. And I'm here to prove what I know. Good heavens, do you suppose he was no more to me than one of my ordinary station hands? He was the son--at all events, the stepson--of one of my oldest friends." "The stepson! May I ask the name of your friend?" "It is unnecessary. You have guessed it. I have a good deal to explain. Where can we go? I should like Lafont and Cripps to hear what I've got to say. Cripps especially--he will be able to check half my facts." "I think we ought all to hear them," remarked Sellwood; "we are all interested and concerned." "You mean the ladies? I would rather not; you can tell them afterwards; and as to the young lady, you may make your mind easy about her. If that was the only obstacle, I undertake to remove it. You can afford to trust her out of your sight."