“You won’t be hard on me?” he pleaded, faintly. “You won’t expect me to go back to London without seeing Magdalen first?”
Mr. Clare looked thoughtfully at his son, and considered a little before he replied.
“You may dry your eyes,” he said. “You shall see Magdalen before you go back.”
He left the room, after making that reply, and withdrew to his study. The books lay ready to his hand as usual. He opened one of them and set himself to read in the customary manner. But his attention wandered; and his eyes strayed away, from time to time, to the empty chair opposite—the chair in which his old friend and gossip had sat and wrangled with him good-humoredly for many and many a year past. After a struggle with himself he closed the book. “D—n the chair!” he said: “it will talk of him; and I must listen.” He reached down his pipe from the wall and mechanically filled it with tobacco. His hand shook, his eyes wandered back to the old place; and a heavy sigh came from him unwillingly. That empty chair was the only earthly argument for which he had no answer: his heart owned its defeat and moistened his eyes in spite of him. “He has got the better of me at last,” said the rugged old man. “There is one weak place left in me still—and he has found it.”
Meanwhile, Mr. Pendril entered the shrubbery, and followed the path which led to the lonely garden and the desolate house. He was met at the door by the man-servant, who was apparently waiting in expectation of his arrival.
“I have an appointment with Miss Garth. Is she ready to see me?”
“Quite ready, sir.”
“Is she alone?”
“Yes, sir.”
“In the room which was Mr. Vanstone’s study?”