She looked up at him with tear-dimmed eyes, and not till then did she fully know how deep the iron had gone. Not a sign of relenting or softening was there. He got up and spoke in a perfectly hard, dry voice.
“Not one atom can you comfort me,” he said. “We have both to bear what has to be borne, and as I have said, it is better to bear in silence. I think now I had better go; I have those matters to arrange to-night which I spoke to you of. Perhaps you would tell the servants that—that everything will go on just as usual here.”
Mrs. Home saw the hopelessness of further appeal just now.
“Yes, dear, go and do what you have to,” she said. “I will tell them. Will you come back to read prayers, Philip?”
“No,” said he.
Then he bent and kissed her, and as he held her hands the first faint sign in the trembling of his lip showed that for her, at any rate, he was not all adamant.
“I am not sorry for myself,” he said, “but I am sorry for you, dear mother, that you cannot possibly help me. Breakfast as usual to-morrow? Good night.”
