“You have known him?” I murmured. “Where? Who is he?”
My father drew a long, inward breath through his clenched teeth.
“That man,” he said, slowly, with his eyes still fixed upon the now distant figure, “was closely, very closely, associated with the most unhappy chapter of my life. It was all over and done with before you were old enough to understand. It is many, many years ago, but I felt in his presence as though it were but yesterday. It is many years ago—but it hurts still—like a knife it hurts.”
He held his hand pressed convulsively to his side, and stood watching the grey, stalwart figure now almost out of sight. His face was white and strained—some symptoms of yesterday’s faintness seemed to be suggested by those wan cheeks and over bright eyes. Even I, naturally unsympathetic and callous, was moved. I laid my hand upon his shoulders.
“It is over and finished, you say, this dark chapter,” I whispered, softly. “I would not think of it.”
He looked at me for a moment in silence. The grey pallor still lingered in his thin, sunken cheeks, and his eyes were like cold fires. It was a face which might well guard its own secrets. I looked into it, and felt a vague sense of trouble stirring within me. Was that chapter of his life turned over and done with forever? Was that secret at which he had hinted, and the knowledge of which lay between these two, wholly of the past, or was it a live thing? I could not tell. My father was fast becoming the enigma of my life.
“I cannot cease to think about it,” he said, slowly. “I shall never cease to think about it until—until——”
“Until when?” I whispered.
“Until the end,” he cried, hoarsely—“until the end, and God grant that it may not be long.”