Finding him still silent, Mrs. Beacham, accustomed from long habit to watch the changes on her son’s countenance, glanced up at it from her eternal knitting, and was startled, strong-nerved woman though she was, at its stern rigidity, and at the colour--that of a livid leaden hue--which had taken place of the usual ruddy brownness of his cheeks. “John, what _is_ the matter? My gracious me, boy! you look as if you were going to faint.” The old woman had risen hastily from her chair, and, standing before him, had laid her two hands upon his arms, holding him thus, while with anxious motherly eyes she peered into the face of him who, being all the world to her, she loved with such a jealous and exacting devotion. For the first time in his life, John answered her shortly, and with what his mother, making scant allowance for the condition of his mind, chafed under as disrespect. “Bother!” he said gruffly, putting her aside with one hand, while he donned his wideawake with the other. “I’m all right. What _should_ be the matter?” And then, in a more collected voice, and with a more composed manner, he added, “I shall go to town to-morrow, mother, by the 10.30 train. I’ve no end of business to-day--other people’s business, or I’d let it all go to Hanover, for what I cared. But for that, I wouldn’t be so many hours before going up to see what that scoundrel Norcott is after with my wife; for, by Heaven”--and he struck a blow upon the old oak floor with his ash-stick that was enough to test the solidity of both--“by Heaven, I begin to think that there’s more than we know of in his sending for her in the way he did. That illness of his was all a sham--I’m pretty sure of that by this time; and then his having Vavasour about her”--and John ground his strong white teeth together as he said the hateful words--“looks as if there was something devilish up with the rascal. God knows! I’ve more than once had a fancy--why, I couldn’t tell you any more than the dead--that all wasn’t square about Rough Diamond. It was no business of mine to inquire into it. If young Vavasour’s been stuck, why, I shall be sorry, that is, if--”