"You'd better be off to see him, I should think; they'll let you in all right."
Phil hesitated. "No," he said; "I've promised to leave these circulars every one to-day, and I can't go until I've done it, or else they would say I wasn't truthful; but I'll be as quick as ever I can, and Rob shall help, and then we'll both go and see father."
And so all the afternoon Stephen Mellor lay on his bed, after his leg had been set and his injuries attended to, hardly able to realize what had happened; surrounded by strangers and suffering, and almost astonished at the longing in his heart to see either his wife or his boys come in.
"Maybe they don't know it yet," he said to himself, after looking eagerly at the opening door, which, however, only admitted the nurse. "Or perhaps, perhaps, they don't care to come; and little wonder, too! Glad to be rid of me. And here I am for I don't know how long, confound it! with nothing to do but lie here and think, think, think!" He clenched his fist almost in despair. Ah! There lay the greatest dread; the physical pain was bad enough, but the pain at the heart was far worse—those troubling thoughts that would not be banished, but that clung to him with persistence, go where he would.
Yes, the three days that had elapsed since his visit to the Mission Hall had been three wretched days, for God had been striving, and he had been resisting that Holy Spirit, who would have led him to repentance and peace. But his reverie was at last broken by the arrival of Phil, who, having finished his work, had hurried to his father. He was rather awestruck at the bandaged head and pale face lying on the pillow, and putting his hand into his father's he said quietly, "Poor father! I'm so sorry. Are you very bad?"
"Bad enough, and no mistake, Phil."
"How did it happen, father?"
Mellor put his hand to his head. "I hardly know," he said; "it seems all confused; but your policeman friend, who brought me up here, said he'd find it all out. It's all like a dream; but my leg pains me dreadful, and my head too. I don't know, but I believe the horse kicked me."
Phil put his hand over his father's aching brow, and said quietly, "Yes, it's very bad to be kicked."
Mellor winced at the words, for they recalled how the bright boy before him had more than once been kicked, not by a runaway horse, but by his own father,—maddened, indeed, through drink. And yet, now that he was suffering, Phil was ready to come with sympathy and love, just as if the cruel past had never been; he was a strange lad, and no mistake!