“So you’ve come to see me. It’s kind of you. Sit down by the fire, doctor, and warm yourself.”
Lucian complied with the invitation silently.
“Well, she’s gone down to the country, has she?”
“Yes. You know Cecil has enlisted?”
“I know. They’ll—they’ll send him out there, I suppose?”
“I believe so. He’ll have to go through his training first, of course. Perhaps the whole thing will be over before he gets out there.”
“I hope not,” said the old man sombrely, “I hope not, doctor.”
The old pawnbroker seemed disinclined for conversation, and they sat in silence on either side of the hearth.
At last the old man made a gesture. “You heard that old musical box of mine, as you came in? He—the boy—used to be very fond of it, when he was little. That time when he and his mother first stayed here after they came back from abroad, he was ill once. And when he first came downstairs I let him have the musical box for a treat, and Foxe’s ‘Book of Martyrs’ to amuse him. The reason I started it playing just now, was that my heart might be softened towards him. I thought if I could think of him again as a little fellow, I might be better able to forgive him. We are all of us conceived in iniquity, but there is something about a child——”
He broke off.