She walked over and lit the yellow jet, turning again to the man who stood, silent and motionless, by the table. Her eyes took in the drawn face, the haggard brow, even the signs of a man's difficult tears. She moved swiftly to him. "Father!" she cried again, "what is it? Has anything happened to Paul?" One hand reached up to his shoulder and the other was pressed hard on her heart.
"No, no, Clara," said the man. "He's written, that's all. In advance of his coming, I suppose, so as to prepare us. You had better read what he says."
His wife detected the bitter, hopeless pain that underlay the words. Her glance, too, read aright the open drawer and the disordered papers. Mechanically she reached out for the letter. "He's still our boy," she cried, inconsequently.
The old Puritan straightened himself. "A son of mine a Roman Catholic!" he cried. "What is my sin that God should bring this upon me? Would God he had died first!"
"Father!—no!—oh, don't say that! I can't bear it, I can't bear it. Oh, God help us, God help us——" She sank heavily into a chair, her body shaken with sobs.
Mr. Kestern moved over, and laid his hand on her shoulder. It was an utterly pathetic gesture that he made, as if, whatever her grief, they were both of them powerless before it. "He's not taken the step yet," he said as one catching at a straw. Then, bitterly, "Or he says not. He wishes to consult us first. But you can read that his mind is made up. They have trapped my boy."
Through her tears, his wife asked for the letter to be read.
"It's quite short," said Mr. Kestern heavily, as he recrossed the room and seated himself in his chair, and then, with that new bitterness, "short and sweet. You can read between the lines.
"'MY DEAR, DEAR FATHER,
"'I know that what I am going to say will give you terrible pain, and believe me, it is only after hours of real agony in prayer for light that I have come to something of a decision. Not by the way that I have really come to a decision at all, for I shall take no step, now or at any time, without consulting you first. Please, please, believe that. But I feel I must tell you definitely that it seems to me very likely that I shall make my submission to the Church of Rome.' ('Make his submission!'—do you notice that? Submit to the Devil! Our Paul!) 'I do not love our Lord one whit less than I ever did; indeed I think I love Him more. It is because I love Him that I shall take this step, if I feel it to be finally right. If I go, I shall go because it seems to me to be His Will and that the Catholic Church is His one True Church. I know you will find it all but impossible to understand, but, dear father, for God's sake believe me when I say that I believe I go to Him because He is the Truth and because I believe that that is His Truth.'"