He hesitated. Never before had he spoken to anyone about his inner life. In a voice that trembled a little, for it was a great effort to him to speak, he went on, "He says to me, Ranulph, he says ... that the past will never come again, but that we must remember that the past is made of the present, and that the present is always here. And he says that the dead long to be back again on the earth, and that...."
"No! No!" cried Ranulph fretfully, "he doesn't say that to me. He tells me to come away ... away from real things ... that bite one. That's what he says to me."
"No, my son. No," said Master Nathaniel firmly. "He doesn't say that. You have misunderstood."
Then Ranulph again began to sob. "Oh, father! father!" he moaned, "they hunt me so—the days and nights. Hold me! Hold me!"
Master Nathaniel, with a passion of tenderness such as he had never thought himself capable of, lay down beside him, and took the little, trembling body into his arms, and murmured loving, reassuring words.
Gradually Ranulph stopped sobbing, and before long he fell into a peaceful sleep.
CHAPTER IV
ENDYMION LEER PRESCRIBES FOR RANULPH
Master Nathaniel awoke the following morning with a less leaden heart than the circumstances would seem to warrant. In the person of Ranulph an appalling disgrace had come upon him, and there could be no doubt but that Ranulph's life and reason were both in danger. But mingling with his anxiety was the pleasant sense of a new possession—this love for his son that he had suddenly discovered in his heart, and it aroused in him all the pride and the pleasure that a new pony would have done when he was a boy.