The following morning Mr. Jackson failed to appear at business. This was an almost unprecedented event, and caused quite a flutter of excitement in the office; but it was not until the afternoon that Desmond learned the reason. He was summoned into the Chief's office to find Mr. Jackson, grey-faced and worn, a broken man.
"I have ill news, my boy," he said very kindly to Desmond. "Sylvia has run away with Custance."
Desmond made no reply. Suddenly the world had altered for him; he had passed out of the light into an impenetrable blackness. He sat with his head bent down, changed in a moment from a light-hearted boy to a despairing man.
"I want you to come home and fill the place that she had. Mrs. Jackson and I love you, and we need a child." Mr. Jackson continued.
"I can't do it," cried Desmond. "I should be thinking of her all the time. I have lost all faith."
And so the world believed; for Desmond O'Connor, while he eschewed the coarser vices and worked relentlessly, renounced for a period the religion that his father's life should have made dear to him, and went on his way a professed disbeliever.