“When they had been separated for some time,” returned Mr. Brownlow, “and your mother, wholly given up to continental frivolities, had utterly forgotten the young husband ten good years her junior, who, with prospects blighted, lingered on at home, he fell among new friends. This circumstance, at least, you know already.”

“Not I,” said Monks, turning away his eyes and beating his foot upon the ground, as a man who is determined to deny everything. “Not I.”

“Your manner, no less than your actions, assures me that you have never forgotten it, or ceased to think of it with bitterness,” returned Mr. Brownlow. “I speak of fifteen years ago, when you were not more than eleven years old, and your father but one-and-thirty⁠—for he was, I repeat, a boy, when his father ordered him to marry. Must I go back to events which cast a shade upon the memory of your parent, or will you spare it, and disclose to me the truth?”