"I would prefer to see him alone. This friend whom my grandchild spoke of is there; I will wait awhile."
"It will be best, perhaps. My place is at your service. If it accords with your desire you can remain here, and I will bring your son to you."
"I thank you," said Mr. Manners, "and accept your kind offer."
His heart was stirred by hopes and fears. It went out to the sweet girl he had seen for the first time; she was of his blood; but had he any claim to her affection? How would her parents receive him--her parents, to whom she was bound by the strongest links of love, and whom he had treated so harshly and unjustly? There was a time when he thought he could never bring himself to forgive the son who had disappointed his worldly hopes; but now it was he himself who needed forgiveness. The happiness of his brief future depended upon the son he had wronged; if Kingsley and Nansie rejected him, the anguish of a lonely, loveless life would attend him to his last hour.
"I should advise," said Dr. Perriera, "that you wait awhile before the interview takes place. Timothy Chance and your son's family are much attached to each other, and it will be an act of delicacy not to immediately intrude upon them."
"An act of delicacy?" repeated Mr. Manners, looking at Dr. Perriera for an explanation.
"I have an idea," said the doctor, "that Timothy Chance has a tender feeling for your grandchild. Whether it is reciprocated or not, I cannot say. There is a disparity in their ages of fourteen or fifteen years, but that should be no obstacle. I hold that in married life the man should be some years older than the woman."
"You have hinted that this Timothy Chance is well-to-do."
"He is more than that. He is on the high-road to a fortune. I am curious to see the shop he has opened. Will you come? We have time. On the road I will relate to you Timothy Chance's story. It is, in its way, remarkable."
They started out together, and, with a heart gloomed by the intrusion of this friend of his son's family, Mr. Manners listened to the doctor's narrative. In Kingsley's eyes his money had never been deemed of importance; Kingsley had never stooped or cringed before that universal idol. How much less was he likely to do so now that he had by his side a friend who could lift him from the state of poverty to which the hard father had condemned him? Not purse-strings, but heart-strings, would decide the issue of his heart's desire.