"I can say no more, sir; I should not have said so much. Oh, Grandad, I wouldn't have hurt you for all the world, yet I had to let you know why I could not do what you had planned—and I was fool enough to think I could justify myself to you!"
The old eyes still blazed upon him with a look of sorrow and of horror that was yet, first of all, a look of power; the look of one who had mastered himself to speak calmly while enduring uttermost pain.
"I am glad you have spoken. You were honest to do so. It was my error not to be convinced at first, and thus save myself a shock I could ill bear. But you have been sick, and I felt that I should not believe without seeing you. I had built so much—so many years—on your preaching the gospel of—of my Saviour. This hope has been all my life these last years—now it is gone. But I have no right to complain. You are free; I have no claim upon you; and I shall be glad to provide for you—to educate you further for any profession you may have chosen—to start you in any business—away from here—from this house——"
The young man flushed—wincing under this, but answered:
"Thank you, sir. I could hardly take anything further. I don't know what I want to do, what I can do—I'm at sea now. But I will go. I'm sure only that I want to get out—away—I will take a small sum to go with—I know you would be hurt more if I didn't; enough to get me away—far enough away."
He went out, his head bowed under the old man's stern gaze. But when the latter had stepped to the door and locked it, his fortitude was gone. Helplessly he fell upon his knees before the big chair—praying out his grief in hard, dry sobs that choked and shook his worn body.
When Clytie knocked at the door an hour later, he was dry-eyed and apparently serene, but busy with papers at his table.
"Is it something bad about Bernal, Mr. Delcher," she asked, "that he's going away so queer and sudden?"
"You pray for him, too, Clytie—you love him—but it's nothing to talk of."
But the alarm of Clytemnestra was not to be put down by this.