"Who was My Father?"
IT was the morning of Mr. Stirling's birthday. Presents, letters, congratulations, had been showered upon him; and now at last he had an hour alone. Hamilton was with his niece; and Mr. Stirling's horse, brought round for a ride, was dismissed. Early though it still was, the Squire spoke of being tired; a rare admission on his part. No; he did not want Katherine; he did not want anybody. He only wished to be alone.
Shutting the door of his study, a lofty though not large room, well lined with bookcases, he sank back in the big arm-chair, close to his writing-table.
Many letters demanded attention; but he was in no mood to give it. A feeling of utter languor, almost of powerlessness, had possession of him. What mattered birthdays, friends, tokens of affection,—while this ever-pressing weight dragged him down? How much longer could he endure it? Was there no way of escape—no road to freedom?
"Yes,—one, and one only." So, with relentless calm, Conscience made answer. He looked that way in the face, and recoiled from it with a shudder. Nothing but confession, and putting right that which was wrong. Nothing but—the impossible!
Round and round the old weary circle his mind was working—almost like a personality, separate from himself. He could neither control nor hinder the treadmill of thought.
He pictured to himself, as he had done hundreds of times before, what Katherine would feel, what Hamilton would say, how the world— his world—would take it. He saw the looks of amazement, the silent contempt of some, the disdainful pity of others. He heard the comments, the whispers of wonderment; and again he felt that to meet all this was out of the question. It could not be. The thing had gone on too long. It had to go on still, during his lifetime. Afterwards, the truth would become known. That was inevitable. But men would be kind to the memory of the dead. They would make excuses —then—such excuses as they would not make while he lived.
Yet, if things were to go on—must he endure to the end this terrible weight, this ever-increasing sense of unpardoned guilt, this constant remorse? That was the crucial question.
His thoughts went again to Mary, his wife; to that scene, twenty-five years or more earlier, when the truth had burst upon him, and he had realised in an agony that to divulge it might lose him the woman he loved.
Vividly he recalled how, first for his love's sake, afterwards for his wife's sake, later for Katherine's sake, and all through for his own sake, he had insisted on silence as the price of his doing aught for Mrs. Morris and her children. And so between them—between him and her— the tissue of deceit was woven.