"Uncle," he said, "you _must_ think of me--you must help me. I have never been able to speak my mind before to a single individual who could comprehend or assist me. I _must_ know what are our circumstances. It is needless to say that my father's past life does not affect me. It does affect me--everything affects me that I am kept in ignorance of. What are we?--what is he?--why are we here?" Horace had hit by chance and unawares upon the means really most likely to attain his end. Colonel Sutherland could not return anything but a true answer to a plain and straightforward question; and evasion was so strange to him that he managed it in the clumsiest manner. He retired on his deafness in the first place--a defence from which Horace drove him out triumphantly by a repetition of the question in tones that could not be mistaken. Then he faltered over it a little, with common-places of hesitation too palpable to deceive anybody. "Your true circumstances--your father's past life? Your father's past life has always been virtuous and honourable," said the Colonel. "What is he? You ought surely to know better than I do, who have not seen him for fifteen years. He is, if you wish my opinion, a man of very peculiar temper. Horace, I do not wonder that you find him rather hard to get on with sometimes, but he _is_ your father; and therefore, my dear boy, whatever others may do, impatience and a harsh judgment do not become you." Horace shook his head. "This is not what I want to know. You know it is not," he said, with a rising colour. "Say no, if you will, but don't treat me like a child. Look here, uncle: I am assured there is a secret--I know it, no matter how--tell me what it is." Horace put the whole force of his voice and mind into the question. He made it not as one who asks, but as one who demands what he has a right to know, feeling convinced that his gentle relative could not now evade him, and had no strength to resist; and with this conviction strong upon him, the young man stared into the Colonel's eyes, with the thought of overawing him and compelling his answer thus. Colonel Sutherland looked at him steadily, withdrew his eyes a moment, looked again, and at last spoke. "If you think," said the Colonel, coldly, "that by this persistence and demand you can persuade any man of honour to betray to you a secret with which another has entrusted him, you show only your ignorance of gentlemen and want of belief in your fellow-creatures. If there is a secret in your family circumstances--though, mind you, I do not admit that there is--can you suppose that I will tell you anything which it is your father's desire that you should not know?" Horace shrunk for a moment in mingled rage and amazement from the tone. It was inconceivable to him that anybody could feel even an instant's contempt for him; but the feeling was momentary.