She waited for more to follow, vainly.
'What was it? Where have you been? What have you done?'
'Mother, you were praying for me!'
'Answer, Christian.'
'I gave a promise. I thought I owed it—yes, I think so,' he said, perturbed, and looked in her eyes for exoneration. There he read intelligence on a wrong tack that his honesty would not suffer.
'No, mother, it was not on a venture—I have come back empty-handed. I mean not such a venture as you think,' he corrected, for among the fishers the word had a special significance, as will show hereafter.
'Say at least,' said Lois, 'you have done nothing amiss—nothing you would be ashamed to tell me.'
'But I have,' he confessed, reddening, 'done amiss—without being greatly ashamed—before.'
His heart sank through a pause, and still lower at his mother's question, spoken very low.
'Then I am to know that though I should question, you would refuse an answer to me?'