And if, after all, you were to come into this darkened room to look upon me lying dead, my body should bleed, if I could make it, when you came near me.' In part relieved by the intensity of this threat, and in part (monstrous as the fact is) by a general impression that it was in some sort a religious proceeding, she handed back the book to the old man, and was silent.
'Now,' said Jeremiah; 'premising that I'm not going to stand between you two, will you let me ask (as I have been called in, and made a third) what is all this about ?' 'Take your version of it,' returned Arthur, finding it left to him to speak, 'from my mother.

Let it rest there.

What I have said, was said to my mother only.' 'Oh!' returned the old man.

'From your mother?
Take it from your mother?
Well! But your mother mentioned that you had been suspecting your father.

That's not dutiful, Mr Arthur.