Logger to an end.
The two were about to ascend the minster steps when they espied Mr.
Fairfax in the distance, and turned to meet him. He had been lunching
with his son. At the first glance Bessie knew that her grandfather had
suffered an overwhelming surprise since he went out in the morning. Mr.
Cecil Burleigh also perceived that something was amiss, and not to
distress his friend by inopportune remark, he said where he and Miss
Fairfax were going.
"Go--go, by all means," said the squire. "Perhaps you may overtake me as
you return: I shall walk slowly, and I want a word with Short as I pass
his house." With this he went on, and the young people entered the
minster, thinking but not speaking of what they could not but
observe--his manifest bewilderment and pre-occupation.
On the road home they did not, however, overtake Mr. Fairfax. He reached
Brentwood before them, and was closeted with Lady Angleby for some
considerable time previous to dinner. Her ladyship was not agreeable
without effort that evening, and there was indeed a perceptible cloud
over everybody but Mr. Logger. Whatever the secret, it had been
communicated to Mr. Cecil Burleigh and his sister, and it affected them
all more or less uncomfortably. Bessie guessed what had happened--that
her grandfather had seen his son Laurence's little playfellow, and that
there had been an important revelation.
Bessie was right. Mr. Laurence Fairfax had Master Justus on his lap when
his father unexpectedly walked into his garden.
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