He half-rose in his bed and stared with dilated eyes at the wall.
“You are there!” he cried, in a loud, quavering voice. “Out of the years of gloom and torture you menace me still! Why, it was just, I say! How could I have clung to my purpose and defied you, otherwise? You will never frighten me!”
He fell back, breathing heavily. In sorrow and alarm I bent over him. Suddenly conscious of my eyes looking down upon him, he smiled and a faint flush came to his cheek.
“Dreams and shadows—dreams and shadows!” he murmured. “You will take up my task, Renalt?”
“Must I, dad?”
“Oh, be a man!” he shrieked, grasping at me. “I have defied it—I, the sinner! And how can it hurt you?”
“Is it so necessary?”
“It’s the key to all—the golden key! Were it to rust and stop, the secret would be open to any that might look, and the devil have my soul.”
“Do you wish me, then, to learn the secret—whatever it is?”
He looked at me long, with a dark and searching expression.