“Listen,” said Mr. Hatfield, to whose countenance the indignant blood rushed as his son thus insolently addressed him: but he chose to controul his feelings--and he succeeded: “listen, Charles--and then decide whether you ought to judge me so harshly. Your conduct of yesterday morning towards your mother and myself was of such an extraordinary--unaccountable--distressing nature, that you cannot blame me if I resolved to discover the motives that had actuated you. In this determination I was fixed by your protracted absence throughout the day--your stealthy return in the evening--your short visit to your own chamber--your avoidance of all the inmates of this house--and your hasty and also stealthy departure again. I confess, then, that I followed you last evening----” “You followed me, father?” repeated Charles, in a low, hoarse, and hollow voice. “Yes--I followed you to Suffolk Street,” continued Mr. Hatfield, with a firmness and a cool determination of tone and manner which he hoped would overawe the rebellious young man: “and, on inquiry in the neighbourhood, I learnt that at the house which you entered, dwells a very beautiful young lady. Now, I give you my honour, Charles, that I asked no more--was told no more than this one fact. I have no desire to become acquainted with the _liaisons_ of my son:--indeed, I know that young men will be--what shall we call it?---_gay_, if you will. All I wished to ascertain was whether there were any grounds for supposing that you had formed a connexion which you may believe to have _love_ for its basis, and which induced you yesterday morning to refuse the fulfilment of your own offer to Lady Frances Ellingham.” “Father,” said Charles Hatfield, scarcely able to restrain an outburst of indignation, reproach, and bitter recrimination,--in which, had he allowed that torrent of feelings to force a vent, all that he knew of his family and their secrets would have been revealed, or rather proclaimed, in no measured terms;--“father,” he said, fortunately subduing the evil promptings of the moment,--“I have listened to you with attention--though not without impatience. Yesterday you reviled me--you heaped bitter reproaches upon me--you menaced me with disinheritance: then, in the evening, you enacted the spy upon my actions--you watched me--you followed me----” “It was my duty--and a most painful one, I can assure you,” interrupted Mr. Hatfield, alarmed by the strange--the ominous coldness that characterised his son’s tone and manner.