Tired out, for his sleep of late was become very restless and broken, presently he fell into a kind of doze, from which he awakened, a few minutes later, to find his father gazing anxiously at him; and with sudden contrition he saw how selfish he had been in giving way thus to his grief.
‘Are you very tired?’ Mr. Iddesleigh asked gently. ‘Come over here and sit by me.’ He drew his son to him as he spoke, and Graham sat down on a stool at his feet.
‘What were you doing all this morning? Were you in the cemetery?’
Graham nodded.
Mr. Iddesleigh laid his hand on the boy’s head. ‘You go there so often!’ he expostulated. ‘It is not good for you, Graham. What do you think about when you go there all alone? What do you go there for?’
Graham hesitated. He clasped his hands about his knees, while he sat gazing out of the window. The rain had ceased and a pale sun was beginning to peep out between the heavy clouds. For some moments he did not answer his father. The familiarity of everything about him was borne into his mind. How often he and his father had sat just as they were sitting now!—in this same room! It seemed to him that his life had been moving in a circle, and that he was beginning to return on a path he already knew. For a little the wings of some great spirit had drooped softly about his head.... ‘Too like the lightning....’ His eyes filled and he bent down to hide his face.
‘What is the matter?’ Mr. Iddesleigh asked, but still without getting any reply. ‘Tell me, Graham, are you thinking about Harold?’
‘Do you wonder I never speak of him?’
‘Is it too near?... But your silence makes you brood over it all the more.’