"My boy," Clifford said—and he put his hand on Alan's shoulder—"I can't bear to think of you wandering about in the night alone, unhappy and uncomforted. What is it that you have against me? What is it that has been rankling in your mind? What is it that has made you drift farther and farther away from me—I, alas! doing nothing to help you back to me? I know Mrs Stanhope says unkind and unjust things against me; but I never cared what she said, until I knew that my boy had turned from me. Now I care."
"Oh, father," Alan cried, with a ring of distress in his voice, "I've been so unhappy. I've tried to tell you dozens of times. You don't know how I've longed to come and tell you."
"Yes, I do know," Clifford answered. "For I have tried to ask you time after time, and could not. One night, before we started for America, I bent over your bed, heard you sobbing in your dreams, and nearly woke you to ask you what was troubling you—but I could not. It is awfully hard for shut-up fellows like you and me to reach each other, isn't it? But let's try now, this very moment; let's break the ice somehow. Tell me everything, without fear and reserve; tell me everything; nothing can wound me so much as being without our dear chumship."
Then the boy told him everything, bit by bit, in detached fragments; now with painful effort, now with sudden ease. Clifford listened, his heart grey. He had not expected the story to be as bad as this. He heard that the boy had been terribly upset by his mother's death following immediately on their conversation that day, when Clifford told him that he intended to separate from Marianne. He had brooded over that. It was so sad to think that his father had wanted to get rid of his mother, and that she had died, alone, and no one caring. He had brooded over that. Not at first, but after he had seen and spoken with Mrs Stanhope. He had tried to forget what Mrs Stanhope said about his father having been unkind to his mother, about his father having been the cause of his mother's death. He could not forget it. He did not understand exactly what she meant; but he had thought about it hours and hours, and he remembered he had seen in the papers that his father had said at the inquest that mother and he had had unhappy words together that very evening; and then—and then all sorts of dreadful thoughts had come into his mind, and he could not drive them away, and——
He stopped and looked at his father, who had begun to walk up and down the room.
"Go on, my boy," Clifford said gently.
And the boy went on pitilessly, with the ruthlessness of youth, which is unconscious, involuntary. As he gathered courage and confidence, he felt the wild relief of freeing himself from his pent-up condition. And he told his father he had begun to wonder more and more how his mother had died—how she had died—and then he had remembered what Mrs Stanhope had said to him about his sonship; he couldn't forget that—his sonship—and he did not feel he ought to go on loving his father if there was any doubt about the manner of his mother's death—no son could stand that—and yet he had always loved his father so awfully, so awfully, and he could not believe that he would have done anything to hurt his mother; and yet he did not know—everything seemed so strange and wrong—and he was so very unhappy, and the journey did not make things better for him, for these dreadful thoughts were at the back of everything he saw and heard—even on the sea, on that bully steamer; and twice he had nearly run away—he wanted to get away by himself, away from his father—yes, away from his father, because he could not bear to be with him and feel——
He stopped again. Clifford stood still. His face was ashen.
"Go on," he said, almost inaudibly.
And Alan went on, and told his father how he had tried to leave him and could not, and how he had tried to come and pour out his heart to him and entreat him to say that it was not true what Mrs Stanhope had said. But he could not. And old Knutty had urged him to come. But he could not. And then, he did not know why, but lately he had been feeling happier again, happier each day, and he had not been thinking so much about—about his mother's death. And they had all been so jolly up at the Saeter, until that beastly woman had come and spoilt everything; she always had spoilt everything for them, and he hated her when he saw her again, just as much as he ever used to hate her—and he hated her for saying those beastly things against Miss Frensham, who was such a brick, and——