Her husband did not say a word. He turned on his heels, closed the door after him, and entered the room in which lay his son's corpse.
As he glanced at those dilated eyes, a chill ran through his frame. "Great God; is it possible?" he exclaimed, raising his eyes to heaven; "my son, my son."
He paced up and down the room with feverish steps, a prey to the most poignant grief. His conscience upbraided him loudly. It said:
"Behold your son whose education you have overlooked; behold him whom you have left to grow in vice, without an effort worth the name to save him from the ruinous bent of his bad passions."
"I know it; 'tis all my fault," exclaimed the grief and conscience-stricken man. "I have not done half of what I might have done for him.
"Animated by a false pride, I desired to shine among my fellow-worshippers, and have been continually away from home, neglecting my duty there, to satisfy my ambition. Miserable man that I am."
He cast his eyes towards the lifeless body of which the eyes met his and seemed to reproach him for having shirked his duty.
"Oh, God! wilt thou ever forgive me?" he cried in wild despair; "what can I do to atone? If one half, if a tenth part of the energy which I have displayed elsewhere had been employed in bringing up my son as I ought to have done, this would not be."
He continued thus to soliloquize, now and then stopping abruptly in his nervous walk to gaze upon those reproachful eyes, then resuming his wanderings, blaming himself continually.
He was in the midst of his peregrinations when his daughter entered the room.