Never had his father looked so old and haggard as then. He had seen enough of what was written there to light horror in his eyes and blanch his face to a deadly whiteness.
“Tell me then,” he said.
Colin sat down on the edge of his father’s chair.
“It’s a terrible story,” he said, “and I hoped you should never know it. But it seems inevitable. And remember, father, as I tell you, that Raymond is dead....”
His voice failed for a moment.
“That means forgiveness, doesn’t it?” he said. “Death is forgiveness; you see what I mean. It’s—it’s you who have to teach me that; you will see.”
He collected himself again.
“It was after I came back from Capri in the summer, and after Vi was engaged to me,” he said, “that what is referred to there took place. He—poor Raymond—always hated me. He thought I had your love, which should have been his as well. And then I had Violet’s love, after she had accepted him for her husband. There was a thought in that which made it so bitter that—that it poisoned him. He got poisoned; you must think of it like that. And the thought, Raymond’s poisoned thought, was this: He knew that Violet had the passion for Stanier which you and I have. Yet when she was face to face with the marriage to him, she gave up Stanier. Father dear, it wasn’t my fault that I loved her, you didn’t think it was when I told you out in Capri? And it wasn’t her fault when she fell in love with me.”
“No, Colin,” he said. “Love is like that. Go on, my dear.”
Colin spoke with difficulty now.