Mr Glascock hitherto had spoken hardly a word.  There was an attempt at joviality about this breakfast or, at any rate, of the usual comfortable luxury of hospitable entertainment which, coming as it did from Trevelyan, almost locked his lips.  He had not come there to be jovial or luxurious, but to perform a most melancholy mission; and he had brought with him his saddest looks, and was prepared for a few sad words.  Trevelyan’s speech, indeed, was sad enough, but Mr Glascock could not take up questions of the worship of Bacchus at half a minute’s warning.  He eat a morsel, and raised his glass to his lips, and felt himself to be very uncomfortable.  It was necessary, however, that he should utter a word.  ’Do you not let your little boy come in to breakfast?’ he said.

‘He is better away,’ said Trevelyan gloomily.

‘But as we are to travel together,’ said Mr Glascock, ’we might as well make acquaintance.’

‘You have been a little hurried with me on that score,’ said Trevelyan.  ’I wrote certainly with a determined mind, but things have changed somewhat since then.’

‘You do not mean that you will not send him?’

’You have been somewhat hurried with me, I say.  If I remember rightly, I named no time, but spoke of the future.  Could I have answered the message which I received from you, I would have postponed your visit for a week or so.’

’Postponed it!  Why, I am to be married the day after to-morrow.  It was just as much as I was able to do, to come here at all.’  Mr Glascock now pushed his chair back from the table, and prepared himself to speak up.  ’Your wife expects her child now, and you will ever break her heart by refusing to send him.’

‘Nobody thinks of my heart, Mr Glascock.’

‘But this is your own offer.’

’Yes, it was my own offer, certainly.  I am not going to deny my own words, which have no doubt been preserved in testimony against me.’

‘Mr Trevelyan, what do you mean?’ Then, when he was on the point of boiling over with passion, Mr Glascock remembered that his companion was not responsible for his expressions.  ’I do hope you will let the child go away with me,’ he said.  ’You cannot conceive the state of his mother’s anxiety, and she will send him back at once if you demand it.’

‘Is that to be in good faith?’

’Certainly, in good faith.  I would lend myself to nothing, Mr Trevelyan, that was not said and done in good faith.’

‘She will not break her word, excusing herself, because I am mad?’

‘I am sure that there is nothing of the kind in her mind.’