Allan’s conscience smote him sorely. He had misjudged and dealt hardly with Abram Lestwick. He had thought, had honestly believed, that the man had intended drawing a knife on him and in his fury and anger had punished his victim unmercifully.
Later, when he had gone carefully over Lestwick’s clothing and had found no traces of weapons hidden there, he had known his suspicion had been unjust. It weighed on his mind, he went over the incident again and again. He wondered if he had seriously hurt the man. He felt anxious and ill at ease, as must every just man when he is conscious of an unintentional act of injustice.
It troubled him the more because he knew that he did not like Lestwick, that to a certain extent he shared Betty’s antipathy for the man.
Little Betty to spend all her days with Abram Lestwick! That could not and should never be.
Yet in this Allan felt himself in the wrong and there was but one course open to him. To seek Lestwick out, to admit frankly that he had erred, to ask the man’s forgiveness and to make amends, if amends were possible.
And yet Allan decided that in a way the man deserved all that he had got, he had pestered and worried Betty, he had waylaid her, to obtrude his hateful love on the frightened, shrinking maid.
"Hang him!" Allan muttered between his teeth. "If he ever does it again I—" he clenched his hands and felt very bitter for a moment towards Abram Lestwick, then the bitterness was gone. He himself had done wrong, had misjudged and therefore only one course was possible to Allan Homewood.
Lord Gowerhurst having found another bedroom, where he was not likely to be disturbed by sounds of bird life, had decided to stay on for a day or two. The country would do him no harm, he would be all the better by the change. His appetite was getting to be really quite satisfactory, though even at the very worst of time, Lord Gowerhurst was no mean performer with the knife and fork.
He had also made the discovery that Allan’s butler, the staid, deferential and respectable Mr. Howard, had at some time in his career been a valet and could still shave with some dexterity and was moreover a very polite and capable man, so his lordship took possession of Howard and another room and declared his intention of staying till Tuesday or Wednesday.