“You’ve heard nothing of it? I was thinking maybe you were also––were drawn here––you’ve but just come?”
“I’ve been here long enough to engage a room––which I shan’t want long. No, I’ve come for no trial exactly––maybe it might come to that––? What have you to tell me?”
But Larry Kildene sat silent for a time before replying. An eager joy had seized him, and a strange reticence held his tongue tied, a fear of making himself known to this son whom he had never seen since he had held him in his arms, a weak, wailing infant, thinking only of his own loss. This dignified, stalwart young man, so pleasant to look upon––no wonder the joy of his heart was a terrible joy, a hungering, longing joy akin to pain! How should he make himself known? In what words? A thousand thoughts crowded upon him. From Betty’s letter he knew something of the contention now going on in the court room, and from the landlord last evening he had heard more, and he was impatient to get to the trial.
Now this encounter with his own son,––the only one who could set all right,––and who yet did not know of the happenings which so imperatively required his presence in the court room, set Larry Kildene’s thoughts stammering and tripping over each other in such a confusion of haste, and with it all the shyness before the great fact of his unconfessed fatherhood, so overwhelmed him, that for once his facile Irish nature did not help him. He was at a loss for words, strangely abashed before this gentle-voiced, frank-faced, altogether likable son of his. So he temporized and beat about the bush, and did not touch first on that which was nearest his heart.
“Yes, yes. I’ve a thing to tell you. You came here to be at a––a––trial––did you say, or intimate it might be? If––if––you’ll tell me a bit more, I maybe can help you––for I’ve seen a good bit of the world. It’s a strange trial going on here now––I’ve come to hear.”
“Tell me something about it,” said Richard, humoring the older man’s deliberation in arriving at his point.
“It’s little I know yet. I’ve come to learn, for I’m interested in the young man they’re trying to convict. He’s a sort of a relative of mine. I wish to see fair play. Why are you here? Have you done anything––what have you done?”
The young man moved restlessly. He was confused by the suddenness of the question, which Larry’s manner deprived of any suggestion of rudeness.
“Did I intimate I had done anything?” He laughed. “I’m come to make a statement to the proper ones––when I find them. I’ll go over now and hear a bit of this trial, since you mention it.”