‘Grandfather!’ said John again. ‘Don’t speak to me. I’ll go and telegraph for Emily back again. She’ll have to find me a place where I can have some peace; for all my peace will be gone here. Oh, John! oh, John! I am glad she has not lived to see this day.’ ‘Don’t say that, grandfather,’ the boy cried. ‘I’ll not do anything to vex you. I only wanted to bear my own name.’ ‘And who told you it was your own name? Your mother is Sandford, and so are you----’ ‘My mother?’ said John, faltering--‘my mother?’ ‘Perhaps,’ said old Sandford, ‘you’re going to deny her too----’ And then there was a silence in the middle of the storm--a silence which marked the dangerous point beyond which these two unused to fighting did not care to go. ‘Grandfather,’ said John at last, ‘I don’t want to vex you, nor to make myself as if I didn’t belong to you. But why shouldn’t you tell me? I’m old enough to understand. If there’s any secret, oughtn’t I to know it? Perhaps it isn’t half so bad as the things I take into my head. It would be so much better if you would trust me--tell me. One time or other I shall be sure to find out; and if I’ve been insulting my mother (how can I tell?) and vexing you, is it my fault? It is out of exasperation because I know there is something, and yet what it is I’m not allowed to know.’ The old man calmed down during this speech and perceived what his best policy was. He said: ‘You moider my poor brains with your talk of secrets. Let alone, my boy. There’s few families that haven’t got something that they keep to themselves--but the Sandfords have less than most. We’ve never been very rich or great, but we’ve always been able to hold up our heads wherever we went. I’m very shaky this morning,’ he said, relapsing into his broken voice. ‘I’d like to take the air a little; but I’ve been so long indoors I don’t know if I could keep my legs.’ ‘Will you have my arm, grandfather?’ said John. ‘Well,’ said the old man, with his half sob, ‘the first day we’re alone it’s a kind of natural to go out together; and we’ll just look if there’s a snowdrop or two out yonder. By this time there should be a snowdrop out.’