“The--the--person who told me knew. But I can’t tell you who it was,” said Jack, with a resolute look on his face. The “person” had been Boo. Hurstmanceaux placed a great effort on himself to desist from further enquiry. “You are right not to betray your friends,” he said. “But you would do better still not to repeat their falsehoods.” Jack did not reply, but from the expression on his face it was plain that he did not think he had repeated falsehoods. Ronald was about to say something to him about his obligation to protect his mother from such calumnies, but it was not the time or place for lectures on duty; and he was painfully conscious that, the older Jack grew, the less esteem would he entertain for his mother and the more true would such statements be likely to seem to him. What the child had said was like a thorn in his own flesh. He had thought better of his sister since her surrender of the Otterbourne jewels, and he had tried to persuade himself that all her previous faults and follies had been due to the wrongdoing of her husband. The boy’s unfortunate speech was like a bolt in a clear sky. For it was certain that Jack could not have had such an idea himself without suggestion from others, and though it was probably the mere garbage of the servants’ hall, it was nevertheless miserably certain that some such story must be in circulation. He continued his ride in great anxiety. He knew nothing of the affair with Beaumont, but many other things rose to his memory; the sale of Vale Royal, the sale of Blair Airon, her incessant patronage of the Massarenes, the persuasion used by her to induce great and royal persons to go to their houses--all this recurred to him in damning confirmation of the suspicions raised by Jack’s words. He felt that he must not question the child further; he could not in honor put her little son in the witness-box against her; but the charge contained in Jack’s words seemed so horrible to him that as he rode past Harrenden House he was tempted to stop and enter, and take the owner of it by the throat, and force the truth out of him. He remembered how much money she had spent that he had never been able to account for; how large her expenditure had been, despite the slenderness of her jointure since the death of Cocky; how obstinately Roxhall had always refused to tell him anything whatever about the conditions of the sale of Vale Royal, alleging that it was a thing he was ashamed of and of which he would never speak; and Roxhall he knew had always been in love with her, and turned by her at her will round her little finger.