“Your Highness,” said he, “I am an old man.”
“Will you bear witness in this cause?” asked Cromwell, his frown softening a little.
“Your Highness, I have suffered unjustly; the lad is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh. I cannot—”
With an angry wave of the hand Cromwell walked heavily from the room.
Some touch of shame came to the young man’s cold heart, and he spoke to his father as the officers were about to lead him away.
“I have been wrong, I have misunderstood you, sir,” he said, and he seemed about to hold out his hand. But it was too late. The old man turned on him, shaking his shaggy head.
“Never, sir, while I live. The wrong to me is little. I can take my broken life into a foreign land and die dishonoured and forgotten. But my other child, my one dear child who has suffered year after year with me—for the wrong you have done her, I never, never, never will forgive you. Not for love of you have I spoken as I did to-day, but for the honour of the Enderbys and because you were the child of your mother.”
Two days later at Southampton the old man boarded a little packet-boat bound for Havre.