Arrived at the house, a striking change was visible in its aspect from the day that its master lay ill and deserted to the time when he was again the Sir Gavin Hamilton of old. A splendidly liveried porter opened the great carved door, and within four powdered and silk-stockinged footmen obsequiously showed them into a noble drawing-room. But Gavin saw nothing except his mother, flitting down the grand staircase as the door opened; and bounding up three steps at the time, he caught her in his strong, young arms, and covered her face with kisses. And then, holding her off at arm’s length, he studied her countenance, thinking to find her thin and pallid. But instead, he had never seen her face so round, so delicately rosy, so nearly beautiful. Lady Hamilton’s examination of him was not nearly so satisfactory.
“My poor, poor Gavin!” she said, and tears sprung to her eyes. Gavin had not endured six weeks of bodily pain and eight weeks of the anguish of fear without showing it.
After a few grateful words to Madame Ziska and St. Arnaud, Lady Hamilton turned and said with authority to Gavin:
“You will now go with me to your father’s room.”
Gavin, obeying the habit of years, went with his mother silently. His mind was in a tumult. He had hated his father very deeply ever since he could remember, nor was he capable of the sublime self-forgetfulness of his mother; for he not only bitterly resented his mother’s injuries, but his own. He, the son of a man rich, powerful, and well born, had spent his youth in poverty, in ignorance of many things, in the hardship of a private soldier’s lot. No; he could never forgive his father. He was saying this to himself when his mother stopped before a large door, and spoke.
“Sir Gavin is changed—more changed than I could have believed. And this change was not brought about for any advantage to be gained; it is that, looking death in the face, his better self was heard. He told me almost in the first days that he was conscious he always yearned over you as other fathers yearn over their sons, and at the very time he tried to win you from me he felt ten times the longing for you when you showed a spirit loyal to your mother. Sir Gavin, with all his faults, is not the man to miss the point of honour, and he respects that in you. He says often to me, whenever we speak of you, ‘The boy is no poltroon.’”
“But what, mother,” asked Gavin, firmly, “of his treatment of you?”
“That is between us, and with it you have nothing to do,” replied Lady Hamilton, with a flush rising to her face. “It is enough to know that Sir Gavin will do all he can to atone—”
“Atone!” cried Gavin, wheeling around and bringing his fist down on the wainscoting in a burst of rage.
The door opened noiselessly, and Sir Gavin Hamilton, dreadfully changed in appearance, but with the same indomitable coolness, appeared.