“There was a great blunder. I did the thing accidentally which I had often had in my heart to do, but which I am very certain would have been impossible to me, had it not blundered out in a very miserable way. We were speaking of my late absence, and I let her know that she had been the cause of our dispute, the reason why I had left home.”
“If you had planned to get ‘no,’ you could have taken no better way. What girl worth having would take you after you had let her understand you preferred a quarrel with your father, and an exile from your home, to a marriage with her?”
“I would, for your sake, father, unsay the words if I could. Is there any excuse, any—”
“There is no excuse but time and absence. Mary loves you; go away from her sight and hearing until she forgets the insult you have given her. I don’t mean go away to the east or to the west coast, or even to London or Paris. I mean go far away—to China or Russia; or, better still, to America. I have friends in every large sea-port. You shall have all that my name and money can do to make your absence happy—and women forgive! Yes, they forget also; wipe the fault quite out, and believe again and again. God bless them! You can write to Mary. Where a lover cannot go he can send, and you need not blunder into insults when you write your words. You have time to think and to rewrite. I shall have to part with you again, son Allan. I feel it very bitterly.”
Allan did not answer at once. He sat looking at his father’s bent face and heavy eyes. The blow had really aged him, for “‘tis the heart holds up the body.” And to-night John Campbell’s heart had failed him. He realized fully that the absence and interval necessary to heal Mary’s sense of wrong and insult might also be full of other elements equally inimical to his plans. Besides, he had a real joy in his son’s presence. He loved him tenderly; it maimed every pleasure he had to give him up.
“What do you say, Allan? There has been a mistake, and we must make the best of the chances left us. Had you not better go away? Mary will forgive you sooner at a distance.”
Allan bit his lips, and looked steadily at the kind, sorrowful face opposite him. Then he answered, “You are too good a father to deceive, sir. I will not do you that wrong, however angry you may be with me. I love another woman. I never can marry Mary without wronging both her and myself.”
“That alters everything, Allan. How long have you loved this other woman?”
“Since I left home last March.”
“You cannot be sure of a love only a few months old. Will you tell me who she is?”