"They sent you to me, did they, boy? And what did they tell you to ask me? They had different motives, I take it."
"Rather! Ruth said you were the best man she had ever known, and if you said it was right for her to marry me, she would. Mrs. Lannithorne said I should ask you if you thought Ruth had a fighting chance for happiness with me. She does n't want Ruth to marry anybody, you see. My father--my father"--Oliver's voice shook with his consciousness of the cruelty of what was to follow, but he forced himself to steadiness and got the words out "said I was to ask you what a man wants in the family of the woman {42} he marries. He said you knew what was what, and I should ask you what to do."
Lannithorne's face was very grave, and his troubled gaze sought the floor. Oliver, convicted of brutality and conscience-smitten, hurried on, "And now that I've seen you, I want to ask you a few things for myself, Mr. Lannithorne. I--I believe you know."
The man looked up and held up an arresting hand. "Let me clear the way for you a little," he said. "It was a hard thing for you to come and seek me out in this place. I like your coming. Most young men would have refused, or came in a different spirit. I want you to understand that if in Ruth's eyes, and my wife's, and your father's, my counsel has value, it is because they think I see things as they are. And that means, first of all, that I know {43} myself for a man who committed a crime, and is paying the penalty. I am satisfied to be paying it. As I see justice, it is just. So, if I seem to wince at your necessary allusions to it, that is part of the price. I don't want you to feel that you are blundering or hurting me more than is necessary. You have got to lay the thing before me as it is."
Something in the words, in the dry, patient manner, in the endurance of the man's face, touched Oliver to the quick and made him feel all manner of new things: such as a sense of the moral poise of the universe, acquiescence in its retributions, and a curious pride, akin to Ruth's own, in a man who could meet him after this fashion, in this place.
"Thank you, Mr. Lannithorne," he said. "You see, it's this way, sir. Mrs. Lannithorne says--"
{44}
And he went on eagerly to set forth his new problems as they had been stated to him.
"Well, there you have it," he concluded at last. "For myself, the things they said opened chasms and abysses. Mrs. Lannithorne seemed to think I would hurt Ruth. My father seemed to think Ruth would hurt me. Is married life something to be afraid of? When I look at Ruth, I am sure everything is all right. It may be miserable for other people, but how could it be miserable for Ruth and me?"
Peter Lannithorne looked at the young man long and thoughtfully again before he answered. Oliver felt himself measured and estimated, but not found wanting. When the man spoke, it was slowly and with difficulty, as if the habit of intimate, convincing speech had been so long disused that {45} the effort was painful. The sentences seemed wrung out of him, one by one.