Prophetic words were they, for no sooner had Matthew departed with his trusted valet, than the blankness of desolation seemed to fall on the old man's heart.
He grew positively nervous and morbid, and the silence oppressed him strangely.
"The house wants children's voices, it is as still as the grave," he thought drearily, as looking out from the window one chill October morning (the day following his son's departure), he noted how the mists were hanging over the meadows. It seemed to him as though they were enwrapping his heart and soul in their chill, white folds.
He sat down to breakfast, but he could not enjoy the meal as usual. His mind kept reverting to the past, and he realized as he sat at his lonely repast, how bitterly hard he had been in the bygone days.
"I must be getting weak or childish," he thought irritably; "pshaw! I'm sick of myself."
During the day, his self-reproach grew deeper and deeper; he thought of Gilbert as a bonny lad, of Gilbert in the Land where nothing may enter to defile, of his widow left desolate, of her helpless bairns. Then his thoughts roamed to Wilfrid, of his lonely grave in a foreign clime, and actually his fierce old eyes grew misty, with mingled pain and regret.
"Pride and anger have been my bane," he said bitterly.
The shadows at length gathered round; it was the longest day he had ever known. He fought against the depression, the sorrow, the regret, against all his nobler feelings, until at length he was vanquished, and at night-fall, in the silence of his room, a cry went up to the gates of Heaven from a broken and contrite spirit:
"God be merciful to me, a sinner."
* * * * *