“Other matters,” repeated Lord Julius, and exchanged a look with his son as they rose. “My dear Christian, there are no other matters.”
“No—not till to-morrow,” answered Christian, with a doubtful smile. “But then I am afraid there are a good many.”
Emanuel filled in the pause. “Mr. Soman has brought all the papers,” he said, with a flitting return to his lighter manner. “It is my father’s meaning that the mortgages are extinguished.”
Christian gazed from one to the other with a face full of stupefaction. His knees shook and sought to bend under him. Tremblingly he essayed to speak—and his lips would make no sound.
Lord Julius laid his big hand on the young man’s shoulder—and Christian, dimly recalling the effect of this touch in the days when he had first known it, thrilled at the novel restfulness it somehow now conferred.
“Only show me a son of yours,” said the old man, with tender gravity. “Let me see an heir before I die.”
Without further words, the two left him. Christian, staring at the shadowed door through which they had vanished, remained standing. His confused brain quailed in the presence of thoughts more stupendous than the ancient hills outside.