XVII
THE REST OF THE TRUTH
"Does any one know him?" demanded my uncle.
"It's the Scollays' idiot son!" I gasped.
I heard an exclamation both from Jean and the doctor.
"Son?" said Jean. "What! Did you think Jock was a Scollay?"
"He was sent up here about a couple of years ago to be looked after by
these Scollays," explained the doctor. "We always supposed he was
somebody's--?" he glanced at Jean and hesitated--"er--somebody's son."
"Good Heavens!" I cried. "What a fool I've been!"
Swiftly I ran over in my mind my first night with the Scollay household.
Had I ever been told Jock was a son? No, I had simply assumed it, and
gone on that assumption without ever once thinking anything more about
the matter. And so, with this impenetrable curtain between me and all
possibility of guessing the truth I had gone on uselessly groping.
"Fool!"
A harsh voice startled me. It was Jock, gazing viciously up at me and
talking guttural English now. His face was still framed in the circle of
the torch, and as I looked at it now I realised that the truth had
actually been written there all the time for a closely observing eye to
read. This man's features differed vitally from the Scollays' and,
especially, there was no cast in his eyes.
"Fool!" he snarled, "yes, you have been a damned fool, you Hobhouse! Ach,
if I had known, you should have been a dead fool!"
"You mean if you hadn't been made a bit of a fool of too?" I suggested.
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