"Father, my dear father!"
The son uttered words of hope, declared his belief that Heaven would grant the dear patient renewed strength; but the voice in which he spoke the words of cheerfulness was broken by sobs.
"My dear Allan, don't be down-hearted. I am resigned to the worst that can happen. I won't say I am glad that the end is near. That would be base ingratitude to the best of wives, to the dearest of sons, and to Providence which has given me so many good things. This world and this life have been pleasant to me, Allan; and it does seem hard to be called away from such peaceful surroundings, from the home where love is, even though through all that life there has run a dark thread. I think you have known that, Allan. I think that sensitive nature of yours has been conscious of the shadow on my days."
"Yes, I have known that there was a shadow."
"A stronger character would have risen superior to the sorrow that has clouded my life, Allan. I have no doubt that some of the greatest and many of the most useful men the world has known have suffered just such a disappointment as I suffered in my early manhood, and have risen superior to their sorrow. You remember how Austin Caxton counsels his son to live down a disappointed love—how he appeals to the lives of men who have conquered sorrow? 'You thought the wing was broken. Tut, tut, 'twas but a bruised feather.' But in my own case, Allan, the wing was broken. I had not the mental stamina, I had not the power of rebound which enables a man to rise superior to the sorrow of his youth. I could not forget my first love. I gave up a year of my life to the search for the girl I loved—who had forsaken me in a foolish spirit of self-sacrifice because she had been told that my marriage with her would be social ruin. She was little more than a child in years—quite a child in ignorance of the world, and of the weight and measure of worldly things. We were both cruelly used, Allan. My mother was a good woman, and a woman who would do nothing which she could not reconcile to her conscience and her own ideas of piety. She acted conscientiously, after her own narrow notions, in bringing about the parting which blighted my youth, and she thought me a wicked son because for two years of my life I held myself aloof from her."
"And in all that time could you find no trace of your lost love?"
"None. I advertised in English and Continental newspapers, veiling my appeal in language which would mean little to the outside world though it would speak plainly to her. I wandered about the Continent—Italy, Switzerland—all along the Rhine, and the Danube, to every place that seemed to offer a chance of success. I had reason to believe that she had been sent abroad, and I thought that her exile would be fixed in some remote district, out of the beaten track. It may be that my research was conducted feebly. I was out of health for the greater part of my wanderings, and I had no one to help me. Another man in my position might have employed a private detective, and might have succeeded where I failed. I was summoned home by the news of my mother's dangerous illness, and I returned remorseful and unhappy. At the thought that she might die unforgiving and unforgiven, my resentment vanished. I recalled all that my mother had been to my childhood and boyhood, and I felt myself an ungrateful son. Thank God, I was home in time to cheer her sick-bed, and to help towards her recovery by the assurance of my unaltered affection. I found that she too had suffered, and I discovered the strength of maternal love under that outward hardness, and allied with those narrow views which had wrecked my happiness. In my gladness at her recovery from a long and dangerous illness, I began to think that the old heart-wound was cured; and when she suggested my marriage with Emily Darnleigh, my amiable playfellow of old, I cheerfully fell in with her views. The union was in every respect suitable, and for me in every respect advantageous. Your mother has been a good and dear wife to me, and never had man less reason to complain against Fate. But there has been the lingering shadow of that old memory, Allan, and you have seen and understood; so it is well you should know all."
Allan tearfully acknowledged the trust confided in him.
"When I am gone, if you care to know the story of my first love, you will find it fully recorded in a manuscript which was written some years ago. Heaven knows what inspired me to go over that old ground, to write of myself almost as I might have written of another man. It was the whim of an idle brain. I felt a strange sad pleasure in recalling every detail of my brief love-story—in conjuring up looks and tones, the very atmosphere of the commonplace surroundings through which my sweet girl and I moved. No touch of romance, no splendour of scenery, no gaiety of racecourse or public garden made the background of our love. A dull London street, a dull London parlour were all we had for a paradise, and God knows we needed no more. You will smile at a middle-aged man's folly in lingering fondly over the record of his own love-story, instead of projecting himself into the ideal world and weaving a romance of shadows. If I had been a woman, I might have found a diversion for my empty days in writing novels, in every one of which my sweetheart and I would have lived again, and loved and parted again, under various disguises. But I had not the feminine capacity for fiction. It pleased me to write of myself and my love in sober truthfulness. You will read with a mind in touch with mine, Allan; and though you may smile at your father's folly, there will be no scornfulness in your smile."
"My dear, dear father, God knows there will be no smile on these lips of mine if I am to read the story—after our parting. God grant the day for that reading may be far off."