"You have worked hard enough and long enough," said Charles; and he might have added, as was in his mind, "And it has all ended in this."
"I would like to help you," he said, as he moved slowly towards the door, striving hard to keep the stiff upper lip Graeme had enjoined on him. "But I don't think you should expect me to do what I know to be wrong. I'll do what I said——"
Mr. Pixley shook his head. His face was gray, his lips pinched in. Charles went out and closed the door behind him.
But he could not leave him so. He had known from the first that he would have to help him, right or wrong.
He opened the door again quietly and went in. His father was sitting at the table with his head in his hands. Charles laid down the money he had, with Graeme's assistance, prepared, laid his hand on his shoulder for a moment, and went quietly out again, and out of the house.
It was a miserable business altogether. He never forgot that last sight of him sitting at the mean little table in the mean little room with his head in his hands.
XI
Charles went soberly down the green slopes towards the sea, and presently discovered the dismantled fort they had seen from the steamer as they ran up the Swinge that morning. And sitting on the broken wall of a gun platform was a figure which he knew by the dress to be Miss Penny.
She had evidently been on the look-out for him. She stood up and waved her hand, and he waved his in reply, and plunged down the slope. His heart was sore at what had just passed. It turned gratefully to one whom he knew to be full of sympathy for him.
When he reached the foot of the hill, they were crossing the causeway which led from the fort to the shore.