But the day after, when Max was tired and depressed from loss of sleep, all his anxieties returned; and they were many, for he had imagined a hundred different dilemmas behind that strange interview.
He was playing softly in the cool parlor, trying to forget his worries, when a tall, distinguished looking man was ushered in. Max turned, and almost dropped his violin. “Father! Oh, father, you are ill!”
“Not ill now—now that I have found you.” He held out his arms.
Forgetting all his past resolves, Max threw himself into those open arms and returned their close, passionate embrace. “Father! I’m so glad!”
“My boy! You cannot be half so glad as I. Do you forgive me?”
Max was astonished. His father asking forgiveness! “Don’t ask that! I—I am the one.”
“No. I was the older one. I should have been the wiser, known my son better. All this long dreadful year that I have searched for you, I have known that it was my unreasonable command that you should give up music entirely and study law whether you liked it or not, that drove you from home. It was my bitter lesson.”
Max noted the thinner figure, the lines of sorrow in his face, and the gray in his hair that had been shining black the last time he saw it; and he understood a little of the grief that had walked by his father’s side day and night for the longest year of his life.
Mrs. Schmitz, hearing voices, came in and met Max’s father as a friend. “I have been expecting you already. I knew you would be finding him, Mr. Ballantree. Mine own daughter after thirteen years comes out of the sea to me; much easier was it for you to find Max.”