He heard his father’s voice. How long ago it had all happened. He had known for years, hadn’t he, that this was his father?
“Marmaduke! Mr. Follett! What have I done? Shall I call somebody? Oh, forgive me!”
His father was standing now beside him and bending over him. He looked up at him and shook his head. He did not want any one to come.
“Oh, what have I done?” the man repeated.
“I was dying anyway, you know,” he heard himself say.
What a pitiful face it was, this weary, loosened, futureless old face above him! What a frightened face! What long years of slow disgarnishing lay behind it: youth, romance, high hopes, all dropped away. He had come to-day with their last vestiges, still the sentimental, romancing fool, self-centred and craving; but nothing of that was left. He was beaten, at last, down into the very ground. It was a haggard, humiliated, frightened face, and miserable. As he himself had been. But not even death lay before this face. For how many years must it go on sinking down until the earth covered it? Marmaduke seemed to understand all about him, as well as if he had been himself.
“Sit down,” he said. He heard that his voice was gentle, though he was not aware of feeling anything, only of understanding. “I was rather upset. No; I don’t want any one. Of course I forgive you. Don’t bother about it, I beg.”
His father sat down, keeping his swollen eyes on the motoring-cap which, unseeingly, he turned and turned in his hands.
“Tell me about yourself a little,” said Marmaduke, with slow, spaced breaths. “Where do you live? How? Are you fairly happy?”
He knew that he was not happy; but he might, like most people with whom life had not succeeded, often imagine himself so, and Marmaduke wanted to help him, if possible, to imagine it.