“I am afraid Wynn would hardly prescribe a remedy so strenuous as that in my case,” Galt returned. “You see, I was tied down there recently, and got enough of it for a man who is said to need quiet and a change of scene.”
“That's true,” Sylvester admitted. “It was only because we'd like to have you so much that I mentioned it. But we'll take you in hand when we get back. So you be ready, young man.”
When the old gentleman had walked away, with his springy, boyish step, and the gate-latch had clicked behind him, Galt went back into the library. He gathered up Dora's pictures with reverent hands, and took them up to his bedroom. He arranged them in good positions, and stood looking at them steadily.
“Yes, she's in them all,” he said. “Her weeping soul speaks out from every one. She has done those things in spite of the disgrace and misery that my cowardice has heaped upon her. What must she think of me—of me, whom she once placed upon such a pinnacle? Her own purity created the place for me in her heart which I once held, and from which her contempt has long since banished me. I've lost her. I owe her the world, and can pay her nothing—absolutely nothing!”
His attention was attracted to the children on Weston's lawn. They were loudly laughing, shouting, and singing. He went to the window and looked out.
“'King William was King James's son,'” they sang, as hand in hand they circled round on the grass. Galt's eyes rested only momentarily on the players. He was searching for some one else. Finally he espied the object of his quest. Lionel—his son, a full-blooded Galt, and, for aught he knew, the flower of the race—was hidden behind a tree peering out like a half-starved urchin at a window filled with sweets. He stood erect and motionless, as if hardly daring to breathe lest he be seen by his social superiors.
“He is waking!” Galt exclaimed. “He is wondering and pondering. The time will come when he will understand and remember, perhaps, that I kissed him with the lips of Judas—I, who should have been his mainstay and supporter—kissed him as he lay in my arms, conscious of my love and ignorant of my weakness. No, I can't help him. Drawn to him as I am by every fibre of my being, still I must deny him. The man does not live who, in the same circumstances, could act otherwise. I haven't the moral backbone. I simply haven't.”
Leaving the window, and sinking into a chair, Galt bent forward, locked his cold hands together, and wrung them as a man might in the agony of death.