Lucilla kept the woman out of the room as long as it was possible to do so.
At last Adrian came downstairs.
That evening the Canon said to Quentillian, with tears in his eyes:
“Adrian has promised me to give up his work for that man. Is it not wonderful, dear Owen? All, all added unto me. If this pain of mine is to be the price of my boy’s awaking to his own better nature, how gladly shall I not pay it!”
It was the only time that Quentillian had ever heard him allude to having suffered physical pain.
“I have not been so much at rest about Adrian since he was a little boy,” said the Canon. “He was always the most affectionate of them all. And he cried like a little child, poor fellow, this afternoon, and voluntarily passed me his promise to leave that man.”
Quentillian’s own involuntary distrust of the promise given by a weak nature, under strong emotional stress, was profound, but he gave no sign of it. It no longer caused him any satisfaction to be aware of a deeper insight in himself than in the Canon. He could not share that guileless singleness of vision, and felt no envy of it, and yet he paradoxically desired that it should remain unimpaired.
He asked Lucilla if she knew of Adrian’s promise.
“He told me. He was crying when he came down. He can’t believe even yet that father is dying, poor Adrian! And yet he must believe it, really, to have made that promise.”
“The Canon is so thankful for it.”