III
Nathan was at home a month later when another letter arrived from Japan. Milly was down to her mother’s and he was dining from a corner of the kitchen table when the bell rang and the postman handed it in. Nathan read it while finishing his lunch.
Tokio, Japan, Sept. 10, 1916.
Nathan Forge, Paris, Vt.
Dear Sir:—
Your cable has reached me, saying you got my letter giving you your last chance to do the square thing by your father and repay him for all he has done and suffered for you—and you are not interested.
I might have known. You are that kind of a son. I am done with you—done, done, done!
Carefully through my things I have searched and culled out all that pertains to you; every reminder of you. Out of my heart and my life I am blotting you. Henceforth my son is dead. I never had a son.
Certain things which I have carried in my wallet, I am returning herewith. Cherish them! Save them for the dark hours, the melancholy twilights, the haunting midnights. Sleep with them beneath your pillow and take them out in dreams and say: I am cursed by my father! I am a son outside the pale! I have desecrated God. I have damned my soul!
Your cable and its unnatural message cuts the last ties binding me to the past. Henceforth I go alone, a wanderer on the face of the earth, the cup of happiness dashed from my lips, life an inferno of What-Might-Have-Been—made so by the boy whom I gave the breath of life and who now brings down my gray hairs in sorrow to the grave.