When he had gone, at Peter Grimm's command, to Leyden and Heidelberg to study botany, Frederik had hoped to close the unsavoury incident for all time.
On his return he had found Willem installed at the Grimm home, a living, ever-present menace and reminder to him. And, despite a soft heart and a normally decent nature, Frederik had, little by little, been forced by his own past and his own hopes into a course that at times was hateful to him. Ten thousand men, far worse than he, walk the streets of every big city and sleep snug o' nights with no grinning Conscience-Skull to break their rest. A thousand well-meaning, harmless sons of dominating and domineering parents are forced, as was he, into by-roads as hateful to them. To be cast by Fate to enact the Villain, when one has not the temperament, the aptitude, nor the desire for the unsavoury rôle, falls to more men's lot than the world realises.
It had fallen to Frederik Grimm's. Wherefore, sick at heart, he sat with his head in his hands. And Peter Grimm read his thoughts as from a printed page.
"Once more a spark of manhood is alight in your soul," whispered the Dead Man. "It is not too late. Nothing is ever too late. Turn back!"
Frederik looked up, half-listening. His hand crept out to the letter.
"Follow the impulse that is in your heart," begged the Dead Man. "Follow it! Take the little boy in your arms. Declare him to all the world as your own. Go down on your knees and ask his mother's forgiveness. Ah, do it, lad, so that I can go back still trusting you,—still believing in you,—blessing you! Frederik!"
"Yes," answered Frederik, starting up. "What is it?"
He glanced about the room unseeingly, then looked toward the outer door and called:
"Come in!"
"That's curious!" he mused, settling back in his chair. "I thought I heard some one at—Who's at the door?" he called again.