Can not you trust me--me--with your son!" Mrs.Bruce paused.
"Now," said the earl, wheeling himself round a little, so that he came face to face with the sobbing child, "lift up your head, Boy, and speak the truth like a man to me and to your mother--see! She is listening.
Did you touch those raspberries ?" "No!" "Cardross!" Calling him by his rarely-spoken name, not his pet-name, and fixing upon him eyes, not angry, but clear and searching, that compelled the truth even from a child, "think again.

You must tell us!" "No, me didn't touch them," answered Boy, dropping his head in conscious shame.

"Not with me fingers.

Me just opened me mouth and they popped in." Lord Cairnforth could hardly help smiling at the poor little sinner-- the infant Jesuit attaining his object by such an ingenious device; but the mother didn't smile, and her look was harder than ever.
"You hear! If not a lie, it was a prevarication.

He who lies is a scoundrel, but he who prevaricates is a scoundrel and coward too.
Sooner than Boy should grow up like--like that, I would rather die.
No, I would rather see him die; for I might come in time to hate my own son." By these fierce words, and by the gleaming eyes, which made a sudden and total change in the subdued manner, and the plain, almost elderly face under the widow's cap that Helen always wore, Lord Cairnforth guessed, more than he had ever guessed before, of what the sufferings of her married life had been.
"My friend," he said, and there was infinite pity as well as tenderness in his voice, "believe me, you are wrong.