"I don't care if you do," retorted Mrs Gabriel; but Leo saw that she quailed. What could she have done to give a man like Pratt--he could not call him father--a power over her?
"You _do_ care," said Pratt, quietly; "but if you don't I'll begin by telling Leo. Here goes. Leo, my son--"
In a moment Mrs Gabriel's defiant attitude became one of supplication. She sprang forward and caught Pratt by the arm. "Don't! don't," she said faintly. "I'll do whatever you wish."
"Will you dare to speak again as you have done?"
"No, no; I know you are the stronger. I could kill you," she muttered, with a flash of her old temper. "But I have to give in--I have to!"
"Well," drawled Pratt, taking a pleasure in bringing her to her knees, a position to which she was quite unaccustomed. "You have persecuted my poor son so that I think he should have something to hold over your head. It would serve you right."
"I don't want to know your wicked secrets," said Leo, very pale, but otherwise calm. "It seems to me that you are an evil couple. And I--Heaven help me!--have a father who is a thief."
"What of that!" said Mrs Gabriel, getting angry again. "You are a thief as well, are you not? The cup--"
"I did not steal it," said Leo, proudly. "You know as well as I do that this--this"--he winced--"father of mine took it away from the chapel."
"That is just where you are wrong. He did not--"
"Mrs Gabriel!" Pratt's voice sounded dangerous. She was quiet at once, and looked at him in a frightened way. But Leo had heard enough to arouse his suspicions. He turned on Pratt and seized him by the arm.
"Have you been telling a lie?" muttered the unhappy young man.
His father shook him off. "It's no use telling another one," he said in a dogged way; "now you know so much you may as well know all. I know nothing about the cup; but, to clear you, I took the blame on myself. You see, Leo," he said calmly, "my character is already so bad that a robbery more or less does not matter. I did it for you, my boy, as I have done everything else. I wanted you to be a gentleman and marry the girl of your heart. Sybil loves you, and I thought when the vicar knew you were innocent that he would let you marry her."
"He might have done so," said Leo, sitting down in absolute despair; "but since Mrs Gabriel told him that I was illegitimate, he has never been the same. He is a proud man."