The Colonel rose and with an old man's slow step went over to the office door and locked it.
"Vickers," he said as he turned around from the door, still averting his shamed face, "you must be crazy, out of your mind, my son!"
"No, father," the young man replied calmly; "I was never surer of anything in my life! I knew it would hurt you and mother,—you can't understand. But you must trust me in this. It has to be."
"Why does it have to be?"
"Because I love her!" he burst out. "Because I want to save her from that man, from the degradation she's lived in. With me she will have some joy, at last,—her life, her soul,—oh, father, you can't say these things to any one! You can't give good reasons."
The old merchant's face became stern as he replied:—
"You wish to do all this for her, and yet you do not mean to marry her."
"I can't marry her! I would to-day if I could. Some day perhaps we can,—for the sake of the child it would be better. But that makes no difference to me. It is the same as marriage for us—"
"'Doesn't make any difference'—'the same as marriage'—what are you talking about?"
The young man tried to find words which would fully express his feeling. He had come a long way these last hours in his ideas of life; he saw things naked and clear cut, without dubious shades. But he had to realize now that what his soul accepted as incontrovertible logic was meaningless to others.