"Raymond, this disgrace is no more your fault than it was young Paradyne's. Take my advice: look it in the face, now, at first; do your best in it; in time you may live it down. Let it be the turning-point in your life. You have not gone in—I use the language of your college fellows—for a strictly straightforward course: begin and do so now. It will be as certain to lead you right in the end, as the other will lead you wrong. Begin from this very hour, Raymond."
"I'll do what I can," was the subdued answer. "Where's my father gone?"
"I don't know where until he writes to me. Raymond! your mother, poor thing, knew the truth of this."
Raymond looked up questioningly.
"I am sure of it. I can understand now her bitter sorrow, the shivering dread that used to come over her, her anxiety that I should be kind to the Paradynes. She seemed always to be living in a sort of fear. The knowledge must have killed her."
Trace shivered in his turn. Yes, the knowledge of her husband's guilt, and the fear of its coming to light, must have killed her.
"Have you sent for Mr. Loftus, Uncle Simon?"
"Hours ago. Thomas telegraphed for him."
Raymond rose. It was time for him to go. He must show himself at college, and attend evening service at chapel as usual. On festivals especially there might be no excuse, and this was All Saints' Day. The great examination had not done away with duties, neither did this private blow of his own. A thought crossed his mind to write a note to the Head Master, and never go back to college again: but it was not feasible. Better, as Sir Simon said, face it out. If he could bring himself to do it!
The contrast nearly overwhelmed him—between this walk out and the recent walk in. He placed his back against a tree in the long avenue, wondering if any misery since the world began had ever been equal to this. As he stood there, the cruelty of his behaviour to the Paradynes came rushing over him in very hideousness. Mr. Henry had once put an imaginary case to him—"Suppose it had been your father who was guilty?"—and that now turned out to be reality. Trace's line of conduct was coming home to him; all its hard-heartedness, all its sin: a little forgiving gentleness towards the Paradynes, a little loving help to bear their heavy burden, would have cost him nothing; and, oh! the comfort it would have brought to him, now, in his bitter hour. As a man sows so must he reap.