“And a very suitable thing,” he said. “And summer comes next for you. For you and Martin.”
“Yes, Martin too,” she said, with an appeal in her eyes. “Oh, father, can’t we be all happy together again? We used to be.”
Mr. Challoner stood silent a moment, a sort of aching longing for all he had always missed in Martin and a dim, bitter regret for all his own missed opportunities of making the most of the human relation between himself and his son rising suddenly within him. And he spoke with a terrible quiet sincerity.
“I don’t think Martin used ever to be happy with me,” he said. “Once he told me he was not happy at home. I don’t think that he ever was. It was perhaps the fault of both of us, but it was certainly mine. I should have done somehow differently. I think we never understood each other. Nor can I understand him now. It is sad. I cannot reconcile what he has done——“
He broke off again.
“There, dear, you must be getting on your way,” he said, “and I must be getting home.”
But she detained him a moment more.
“Won’t you give me a little hope?” she said. “I thought last night that perhaps, perhaps soon—and this news this morning——“
But her father disengaged her hand.