The father humbled himself before the son, but in his humiliation became majestic, and in after years, when he was dead and gone, there was no scene in the long intercourse with him which lived with a brighter and fairer light in the son's memory.
"You know nothing then against Susan?"
"Nothing!"
"I found a bit of a letter on your desk from Cadman. I could not help reading it. Had that anything to do with her?"
"Nothing!"
"Father, you seem faint and you tremble; hadn't you better go in doors and take something, and lie down? We cannot get home till to-morrow."
The father went to the inn with difficulty; he had tasted no food for many hours, and had not slept for some time, but he could neither eat nor sleep. Hitherto God's will had appeared to him ascertainable with comparative ease, and he had been as certain of the Divine direction as if he had seen a finger-post or heard the word in his ear. But now he was dazed and, in doubt. He was convinced that his rescue by Susan was an interposition of Providence, and if so, then all his former conclusions were wrong. What was he to do? How was he henceforth to know the mind of his Master? Oh, how he wished he had lived in the days when the oracle was not darkened—in the days of Moses, when God spake from the Mount, when there was the continual burnt-offering at the door of the tabernacle, "where I will meet you, to speak there unto thee." God really did intend that Robert should marry Susan! "If righteousness and judgment," he cried, inverting the Psalm, "are the habitation of His throne, clouds and darkness are round about Him." But he submitted. "Thou art wiser than I," he prayed. It was mere presumption then to have risked the loss of his soul in the blind belief that it was for God's cause. The sin had been committed, the lie had been uttered; would God pardon him? and it was mercifully whispered to him that he was forgiven for His sake. So was he saved from uttermost despair.
In the evening he said he would go out and breathe a little fresh air before bedtime. It was a perfectly unsullied night, with no moon, but with brilliant stars. Father and son sat upon a bench facing the sea, and the lighthouse from the rock sent its bright beam across the water. There is consolation and hope in those vivid rays. They speak of something superior to the darkness or storm—something which has been raised by human intelligence and human effort.
Robert turned round to his father.
"Look at the light, father, fourteen miles away."