“Don’t interrupt me, my dear,” said Lady Mactavish. “It is not a matter you can understand. After all that Sir Matthew has done for you. Ralph, I think at least you might have behaved properly to him. He tells me that you were so impertinent that he has been forced to order you out of the house.” “I had no intention of being rude,” said Ralph, standing before her with much the same expression of impatience, curbed by a sense of obligation with which he had always taken her fault-finding. “I am quite aware that your intentions are always, according to your own account, immaculate,” she said scathingly, “but, unfortunately, your words and actions don’t correspond with them. You have behaved abominably to the man who has fed, and clothed, and housed you all these years, a man who has wasted hundreds of pounds on your schooling.” “Believe me, I do not forget what he has done for me,” said Ralph eagerly. “I am grateful for it. But he used words of my father which were cruel, words which no son could patiently have listened to.” “Nothing can excuse the way you have behaved,” said Lady Mactavish, “so say no more about it. What are your plans?” “I have made none,” said Ralph, “except to go by the six o’clock train.” “Where are you going?” “To London,” he replied. Lady Mactavish glanced at him a little uneasily. She could not without prickings of conscience think of turning this boy adrift. “Sir Matthew, with his usual kindness and generosity, asked me to give you these,” she said, holding out the bank notes. “Though you have so much disappointed and pained him, he will not let you be sent away without money.” But Ralph drew back; there was a look in his eyes which half frightened Evereld. “Thank you,” he said, “but I cannot take them; after what passed just now in the library it is out of the question.” Lady Mactavish looked uncomfortable. “You have been so shielded and cared for that you don’t realise what the world is. You will certainly be getting into trouble. I desire you to take these.” “I am sorry to refuse you anything,” he said with studied politeness. “But you ask what is impossible.” “Your pride is perfectly ridiculous,” she said, turning away with a look of annoyance. “However, I shall retain these notes for you, and when you have realised your foolishness, you can write and ask me for them.” Something in her tone, touched Ralph. It seemed to him that perhaps after all she had taken some little thought for his well-being, and that behind her grumbling, ungracious manner, there was more real heart than he had dreamed. “Will you not let me say good-bye to you?” he said. “You must not think I am ungrateful for the home you have given me all these years.” She took leave of him more kindly than he had expected, after which he turned thoughtfully back into the schoolroom, where he found poor Evereld sobbing her heart out.