As he went into the passage, he heard the kitchen-door close behind him.
Ern was his father's son, and nothing was to be allowed to intrude in the parting between the two.
Edward Caspar stood before the fire in quilted dressing-gown, somewhat faded now.
In its appointed place on the chair beside his chair lay the familiar manuscript, much as Ern had known it since his childhood, save that the titles on the covering page were typewritten now—The Philosophy of Mysticism, Part I, The Basis of Animism.
His father's colourless hair was greying fast and becoming sparse; while his always ungainly figure was losing any shape it had ever possessed.
At fifty Edward Caspar was already old. But age had enhanced the wistfulness which had marked him, even in youth. His was the face of a man who has failed, and is conscious of his failure; but it was the face of a Christian, gentle and very sad. Here clearly was a man of immense parts, scholar, thinker, artist, who, somehow baffled by the wiles of Nature, had failed to make good.
Yet in spite of his failure there were few who could more surely rely upon the limitless resources of the Spirit in the hour of his need than Edward Caspar.
And now in this great moment of his life, when he was parting from his dearest, he summoned to his aid all the powers that, massed unseen in the silence, await our call.
There was a wonderful dignity and restraint about him.
Ern, the most intuitive of lads, felt it and drew from his father's strength.