So, upon
reading this letter, I made inquiries on my own account with the
result that yesterday I drove over to a certain inn called the
'Coursing Hound,' and talked with your father. Very handsome he is
too--as he always was, and I saw him in the hey-day of his fame,
remember. Well, I sipped his ale,--very good ale I found it, and
while I sipped, we talked. He is very proud of his son, it seems,
and he even showed me a letter this son had written him from the
'George' inn at Southwark. Ha! Joan Beverley was to have married an
ugly old wretch of a marquis, and John Barty is handsome still. But
an inn-keeper, hum!"
"So--that was why my mother ran away, madam?"
"And Wilfred Chichester knows of this, and will tell Cleone, of
course!"
"I think not--at least not yet," answered Barnabas thoughtfully,--
"you see, he is using this knowledge as a weapon against me."
"Why?"
"I promised to help Ronald Barrymaine--"
"That wretched boy! Well?"
"And the only way to do so was to remove him from Chichester's
influence altogether. So I warned Mr. Chichester that unless he
forswore Barrymaine's society, I would, as Joan Beverley's son and
heir to the Beverley heritage, prove my claim and dispossess him.
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