“My dear, dear fellow!”
His voice, charged with emotion, broke horribly over each fresh ejaculation.
“My son—Owen—you’ve been nothing less to me—and now—treated like this—one of mine own household—what can I say, what can I say?”
Quentillian longed heartily to implore the Canon to say nothing at all.
“Won’t you sit down, sir? I thought I’d better come and talk to you, if I may.”
“Anything, anything, dear lad. Have you seen my unhappy child?”
“Valeria and I have agreed that we are no longer engaged,” said Owen carefully. “I don’t consider that I have been unfairly treated. She discovered, rather before the eleventh hour, that she and Captain Cuscaden were in love with one another, and it would have been quite as unjust to me as to herself, if she had not acted upon the discovery.”
Canon Morchard gazed anxiously at the victim of this neatly-analysed situation.
“For Heaven’s sake, Owen, don’t let yourself become bitter. It is so easy—so fatally easy, when one is suffering. Take a stronger grip of your faith than ever before, dear lad—remember that ‘all things work together for good.’ One learns to dwell upon those words, and the meaning deepens into something so unspeakably precious....”
To Owen’s relief the Canon sank back into his chair again.