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He wondered an instant, for the boy's sake, whether he might successfully pretend not to understand.Not successfully, he felt, as Mr.and Mrs.Moreen, dinnerless by their extinguished hearth, rose before him in their little dishonoured salon, casting about with glassy eyes for the nearest port in such a storm.They were not prostrate but were horribly white, and Mrs.Moreen had evidently been crying.Pemberton quickly learned however that her grief was not for the loss of her dinner, much as she usually enjoyed it, but the fruit of a blow that struck even deeper, as she made all haste to explain.He would see for himself, so far as that went, how the great change had come, the dreadful bolt had fallen, and how they would now all have to turn themselves about.

Therefore cruel as it was to them to part with their darling she must look to him to carry a little further the influence he had so fortunately acquired with the boy - to induce his young charge to follow him into some modest retreat.They depended on him - that was the fact - to take their delightful child temporarily under his protection; it would leave Mr.Moreen and herself so much more free to give the proper attention (too little, alas! had been given) to the readjustment of their affairs.

"We trust you - we feel we CAN," said Mrs.Moreen, slowly rubbing her plump white hands and looking with compunction hard at Morgan, whose chin, not to take liberties, her husband stroked with a paternal forefinger.