Ibrahim began to wring his hands. It was impossible. Yes, impossible. Quite impossible. Her ladyship was ill.
"Ill?"
"She went up to the Citadel yesterday, sir, and came home utterly exhausted."
"Do you mean that my mother is very ill—dangerously ill, Ibrahim?"
"I don't know, sir. I can't say, sir. I fear she is, sir."
"Then all the more I wish to see her," said Gordon.
But again Ibrahim wrung his hands. The doctor had been there four times that day and ordered absolute rest and quiet. Only Fatimah was permitted to enter the patient's room—except the Consul-General, and he went up to it every hour.
"It would be a shock to her, sir. It might kill her, sir. Wallahi! I beg of you not to attempt it, sir."
Ibrahim was right, plainly right, but never until that moment had Gordon known the full bitterness of the cup he had to drink from. Because his mother was ill, dangerously ill, dying perhaps, therefore he must not see her—he of all others! He was going far, and might never see her again. Was another blank wall to be built about his life? It was monstrous, it was impossible, it should not be!
In the agony of his revolt a wild thought came to him—he would see his father! Why not? Back to his memory across the bridge of so many years came the words which his father had written to him when he came of age: "You are twenty-one years of age, Gordon, and your mother and I have been recalling the incidents of the day on which you were born.... From this day forward I am no longer your father, I am your friend—perhaps the best friend you will ever have; let nothing and no one come between us." Then, why not? What was there to be afraid of?