“But you’ve no right to go now; no business,” his father broke in violently. “Persuading that poor girl to wreck her life ... and then leaving her, planting her there with her past ruined, and her future.... George, you can’t!”
George, in his long months of illness, had lost his old ruddiness of complexion. At his father’s challenge the blood again rose the more visibly to his still-gaunt cheeks and white forehead: he was evidently struck.
“You’ll kill her—and kill your mother!” Campton stormed.
“Oh, it’s not for to-morrow. Not for a long time, perhaps. My shoulder’s still too stiff. I was stupid,” the young man haltingly added, “to put it as I did. Of course I’ve got to think of Madge now,” he acknowledged, “as well as mother.”
The blood flowed slowly back to Campton’s heart. “You’ve got to think of—just the mere common-sense of the thing. That’s all I ask. You’ve done your turn; you’ve done more. But never mind that. Now it’s different. You’re barely patched up: you’re of use, immense use, for staff-work, and you know it. And you’ve asked a woman to tie up her future to yours—at what cost you know too. It’s as much your duty to keep away from the front now as it was before—well, I admit it—to go there. You’ve done just what I should have wanted my son to do, up to this minute——”
George laid a hand on his a little wistfully. “Then just go on trusting me.”
“I do—to see that I’m right! If I can’t convince you, ask Boylston—ask Adele!”
George sat staring down at the table. For the first time since they had met at Doullens Campton was conscious of reaching his son’s inner mind, and of influencing it.
“I wonder if you really love her?” he suddenly risked.
The question did not seem to offend George, scarcely to surprise him. “Of course,” he said simply. “Only—well, everything’s different nowadays, isn’t it? So many of the old ideas have come to seem such humbug. That’s what I want to drag her out of—the coils and coils of stale humbug. They were killing her.”