CHAPTER XIV.
AN INCUBUS, AND THE DEMON OF JEALOUSY.
Of all the people in their small world, it is possible that Mr. Robert Carlaw was quite the last they would have chosen as a companion for what had promised to be a happy day. He sat for some time in gloomy thought, waking now and then to a sudden smile, as though joyousness were expected of him, but showing plainly that the effort cost him something, and was difficult. The lightness had gone out of the others, too; they sat more stiffly than they had done, and looked anywhere but at him. At last, with a sigh, he broke the silence.
“I can not tell you,” he began, “how grateful I am to Providence that I met you. For me the sun shines no more; blackness creeps about me. If I should laugh a little in the sun to-day, if I should be glad that bright faces are before me”—he bowed toward the young people—“believe that it is only a passing thing, and that despair—horrible despair—will claim me for its own within a few hours. Sir”—he turned abruptly on the captain—“I am a most unhappy man.”
“Indeed, I am sorry to hear it,” replied the captain coldly.
“A most unhappy man,” pursued the other. “I have been stung, sir, stung to the quick; I have nursed—nay, fondled—a viper in my bosom, with the inevitable result. I allude, sir, to my son. Debts I could have forgiven, recklessness I could condone—it is in the blood, and must out; but ingratitude, never! When I think of all that that boy owes to me—his talents, his education, everything—I feel that it is too much. Even the family temper—the temper that will take him far—he owes to me. And now, sir, what does he do?”
The captain shifted uneasily in his seat, and Comethup looked distressed; ’Linda had turned her head away.
“He forsakes me in my declining years; mocks the hand that fed him; leaves me to loneliness and despair. And yet, foolish creature that I am, my heart still yearns for him; my hearth is still warm for him. After all,” he pursued, in a lighter vein, “I suppose I have no right to complain. As I have said, it is in the blood; he bears the taint that has kept his wretched father down in the world, and yet—thank God!—the taint which has kept him a gentleman.” His breast swelled, and he shook his head valiantly.
No one quite knew what to say, and there was an awkward silence. Comethup glanced at ’Linda, but she was still looking out across the country, and he could not clearly see her face.