The blanched and delicate face of the old man showed the grief, the wound to personal affection he did not venture to let himself express, mingled with a rocklike steadiness of will.
"You have heard from the Cloan Sisters?"
"Last night. Nothing could be kinder. There is a little house close by the Sisterhood where she and the boy could live. They would give her work, and watch over her, like the angels they are,—and the boy could go to a day school. But they won't hear of it—they won't listen to it for a moment; and now—you see—they've put their own alternative plan before us, in this letter. He said to me, yesterday, that she was not religious by temperament—that she wouldn't understand the Sisters—nor they her—that she would be certain to rebel against their rules and regulations—and then all the old temptations would return. 'I have taken her life upon me,' he said, 'and I can't give her up. She is mine, and mine she will remain.' It was terribly touching. I could only say that I was no judge of his conscience, and never pretended to be; but that he could only remain here on our terms."
"The letter is curiously excitable—hardly legible even—very unlike Betts," said Newbury, turning it over thoughtfully.
"That's another complication. He's not himself. That attack of illness has somehow weakened him. I can't reason with him as I used to do."
The father and son walked on in anxious cogitation, till Newbury observed a footman coming with a note.
"From Coryston Place, sir. Waiting an answer."
Newbury read it first with eagerness, then with a clouded brow.
"Ask the servant to tell Miss Coryston I shall be with them for luncheon."
When the footman was out of earshot, Newbury turned to his father, his face showing the quick feeling behind.