As he spoke he was standing by his father's side, the latter being seated in his armchair, and Julian's hand was on the elder man's shoulder. Then, as he patted that shoulder--once, too, as he touched softly the almost prematurely grey hair--he said, his voice deep and low and full of emotion:
"Whatever you may tell me can make no difference in my love and respect for you. How can you think so? Recall what we have been to each other since I was a child. Always together till I went to sea--not father and son, but something almost closer, comrades----"
"Ah, Julian!"
"Do you think I can ever forget that, or forget your sacrifices for me; all that you have done to fit me for the one career I could have been happy in? Why, if you told me that you--oh! I don't know what to say! how to make you understand me!--but, if you told me you were a murderer, a convict, a forger, I should still love you; love you as you say you loved the mother I never knew----"
"Don't! Don't! For Heaven's sake don't speak like that--don't speak of her! Your mother! I--I--have to speak to you of her later. But now--now--I cannot bear it!"
For a moment Julian looked at his father, his eyes full of amazement; around his heart a pang that seemed to grip at it. They had not often spoken of his mother in the past, the subject always seeming one that was too painful to Mr. Ritherdon to be discussed, and, beyond the knowledge that she had died in giving birth to him, Julian knew nothing further. Yet now, his father's agitation--such as he had never seen before--his strange excitement, appalled, almost staggered him.
"Why?" he exclaimed, unable to refrain from dwelling upon her. "Why not speak of her? Was she----"
"She was an angel. Ah," he continued, "I was right--this story of my past must be told--of my crime. Remember that, Julian, remember that. My crime! If you listen to me, if you will hear me, as you must--then remember it is the story of a crime that you will learn. And," he wailed almost, "there is no help for it. You must be told!"
"Tell it, then," Julian said, still speaking very gently, though even as he did so it seemed as if he were the elder man, as if he were the father and the other the son. "Tell it, let us have done with vagueness. There has never been anything hidden between us till now. Let there be nothing whatever henceforth."
"And you will not hate me? You will--forgive, whatever I may have to tell?"