He knew nothing yet, but that home seemed to be gliding away. He had not heard the letter read, but a strange horror of what it might contain made him shudder for what he knew; and as the future began to paint terrors without end, he suddenly nipped the arm of his silent, thoughtful companion.
“There! there!” he said, “we are thinking about ourselves, man.”
“No,” said Bayle, in a deep, sad voice, “I was thinking about them.”
“It’s my belief,” said Sir Gordon, half angrily, “that you have gone on all these years past thinking about them. But come! We must act. Tell me about the letter. Do you say he wrote to you?”
“Yes.”
“But why to you? He must have hated you with all his heart.”
“I believe he did,” replied Bayle. “Even my love for his child was a grievance to him.”
“And yet he wrote to you, enclosing the letter to his wife.”
“I suppose he felt that I should not forsake them in their distress; and that whatever changes might have taken place my whereabouts would be known—a clergyman being easily traced. See!”
He took another letter from his pocket, and stopped beneath a gas-lamp.