'The sin lies on my own head, Milly. I have neglected my children, buried myself in my own pursuits and sorrow, and now I am sorely punished. My son refuses the confidence which his father actually stooped to entreat,' and there was a look of such suppressed anguish on Mr. Lambert's face that Mildred could hardly refrain from tears.
'Richard is always so good to you,' she said at last.
'Do I not tell you I blame myself and not the boy that there is this barrier between us! but to know that my son is in trouble which he will not permit me to share, it is very hard, Mildred.'
'It is wrong, Arnold.'
'Where has the lad inherited his proud spirit! his mother was so very gentle, and I was always alive to reason. I must confess he was perfectly respectful, not to say filial in his manner, was grieved to distress me, would have suffered anything rather than I should have been so harassed; but it was not his fault that people had meddled in his private concerns; you would have thought he was thirty at least.'
'I am sure he meant what he said; there is no want of heart in Richard.'
'He tried to smoothe me over, I could see, hoped that I should forget it, and would esteem it a favour if I would not make it a matter of discussion between us. He had been a little unsettled, how much he refused to say. He could wish with me that he had never been thrown so much with Macdonald, as doubts take seed as rapidly as thistledown; but when I urged and pressed him to repose his doubts in me, as I might possibly remove them, he drew back and hesitated, said he was not prepared, he would rather not raise questions for which there might not be sufficient reply; he thought it better to leave the weeds in a dark corner where they could trouble no one; he wished to work it out for himself—in fact, implied that he did not want my help.'
'I think you must have misunderstood him, Arnold. Who could be better than his own father, and he a clergyman?'
'Many, my dear; Heriot, for example. I find Heriot is not quite so much in the dark as I supposed, though he treats it less seriously than we do; he says it is no use forcing confidence, and that Cardie is peculiar and resents being catechised, and he advises me to send him to Oxford without delay, that he may meet men on his own level and rub against other minds; but I feel loath to do so, I am so in the dark about him. Heriot may be right, or it may be the worst possible thing.'
'What did Richard say himself?'