After Mr Darnley the elder had finished his unpleasant colloquy with his son, and had seen his daughters walk out together; though at the time he had not any suspicion of their intentions, yet he began to be suspicious that some intercourse might be carried on thus clandestinely with the prohibited fair one of Smatterton. He then sought for his son, whom he found in the dining-room with a book spread open before him, but apparently little occupied with the contents of the volume. With a dry and careless air, the father addressed the young man: “Where are your sisters, Robert?” “They are gone out to take their morning’s walk, sir,” replied the son. “And where are they gone?” said the elder gentleman, with greater emphasis and asperity than was usual with him. To an interrogation thus suspiciously addressed to him, the young gentleman did not feel inclined to give a very explicit and satisfactory answer. There is frequently a great difficulty in managing replies to some questions, which force, as it were, an unpleasant answer, or an untruth. It is hard and ungenerous to ask such questions, and when people of any delicacy of feeling find that they have by any unintentional impertinence proposed a question of this nature, they will immediately, and with as good a grace as possible, waive pressing for an answer. But in the present case, the question was put for the very express purpose of extorting reluctant information. And the younger Darnley did not feel himself at all inclined to give an answer, or to tell a falsehood. He therefore remained silent and looked again upon his book, considering that the recent discussion between himself and his father was sufficient to account for a little sulkiness and gloom. The father became now more suspicious, and he repeated his question with greater earnestness, and he said in an angry tone, “I ask you, Sir, where your sisters are gone. Why do you not answer me?” Then the young man was angry in his turn, and he replied, “I am not in the habit, Sir, of interrogating my sisters as to the direction in which they may please to walk.” Now as Mr Darnley the elder was not quite so much aware of the angriness of his own tones as he was of the sharpness of the answer, his suspicions were still farther corroborated, and he said, “You know that they are gone to Smatterton.” Robert Darnley was again silent, and though his father repeated the assertion in a variety of modes, he gave no answer to it. Mr Darnley the elder, then in a most angry mood, set out to walk to Smatterton, that he might convince himself of the truth of his suspicions.