Even the short silence which followed his speech seemed to cause some slight uneasiness to the sick man.
‘You do not speak—you do not answer!’ he said, with a certain sharpness, and a catch in his breath which showed how easily he was agitated.
Tor signed to Roma to give him brandy, and answered gently enough:
‘If I do not speak, it is not because I do not feel. I am deeply conscious of the honour you do me; Roma and I both understand all that your words mean to us. But whilst you are so ill, we would rather postpone further discussion. What has passed already is enough for us.’
The strained look upon the white face relaxed, and the rapid breathing grew more natural.
‘It is well,’ he said; ‘dutiful, filial, affectionate! All is very, very well. Roma, give me your hand.’
She obeyed, rising and standing beside the bed, opposite to Tor. Her eyes were lowered, her hand shook a little, yet something in Tor’s manner took away the keen edge of her pain and shame.
‘Your hand, Philip Debenham,’ said Meredith.
Tor placed his own within the sick man’s feeble clasp, and thus Michael Meredith had the extreme gratification of joining together the hand of his daughter Roma, and that of the man whom he believed to be Philip Debenham.
‘Bless you, my children!’ he said fervently.