“I don’t have to go to college for those! What you know of the East, did you learn it out of books? You did not! You learned it out of life! Learned it yourself, ‘somewhere east of Suez.’ Well, the temple-bells are calling me, too; and yet you pen me up in this crabbed little New England village, where they don’t even know there are temple-bells! It’s choking me to death, I tell you!” He caught at his throat, as if striving for air. “But you don’t understand. You’re old now, and you’ve ‘put it all behind you, long ago and far away,’ and now you ask me to be civilized!”
“You mean to tell me, sir,” the captain asked, his voice trembling, “that you’d abandon me, after the way I’ve worked for you? You’d abandon the family and the home? You’d leave that good, pure girl, Laura, just for a whim like this? I appeal to you, my boy, in the name of the family—”
“It’s no use, grandfather. You’ve got to let me go!” Unmoved he heard the old man plead:
“Have you no love for me, then? I’m in my declining years. Without you what would be left? I’ve lived for you, Hal, and in the hope of what you’d be some day. I’ve hoped you’d marry Laura—I’ve dreamed of grandchildren, of new light in the sunset that’s guiding me to the western harbor. I’ve wanted nothing but to give the end of my life to you and for you, Hal—nothing but that!” In the captain’s eyes gleamed a tear. Hal, noting it, felt secret scorn and mockery. “I’m willing to overlook everything that’s past and give you a fresh start. God knows, I’d gladly lay down my life for you! Because, Hal—you know I love you, boy!”
Hal glanced appraisingly at the entreating old figure on the bench, at the white head, the tear-blurred eyes, the trembling outstretched hands. To what point, he wondered with sinister calculation, could he turn this blind affection to his own uses? He kept a moment’s silence, then said in a tone that skilfully simulated humilitude:
“I suppose I am a fool to have such thoughts, after all. What is it you want me to do?”
“First, I want you to get off the lee shore. I’ll pay your debts, Hal, and clear you. There are other colleges, and as for McLaughlin, the money and apology will satisfy him.”
“Apology? What apology?”
“Oh, he demands an apology from you, you understand?”
“He does, eh? Like—h-m! Well, I suppose I can do that.” Hal kept his lying tongue to the deception now essential to the success of his plans.