“Good. So what I want to say to you is serious. You have been a good son to me. I've tried to do my duty by you. But I've never asked you to do a thing for my sake during the whole course of your life. Do you think I should be justified in starting now?”
“It stands to reason,” said Sylvester.
Matthew rose from his chair and put his hand on his son's shoulder. With all the tenderness of his heart, he was a man singularly little given to outward demonstrations of affection.
“Then do everything in your power,” said he, “to stop this marriage. For my sake.” He turned and walked away. “I can do nothing,” he added.
“Very well,” replied Sylvester, quietly; “I'll stop it.”
“Don't undertake too much. I only asked you to try.”
“I've said I'll stop it, and I will. Even if it comes to—”
“What?”
“To marrying her myself,” said Sylvester, grimly.
Matthew sat down again, and then passed one of the long silences, so common between these two, who seemed to understand each other better when no words were spoken. Each man kept his own life's secrets hidden in his heart, would have gone through torture rather than reveal them to the other, or indeed to any human being, and yet each was dearer to the other than any being on earth. Speech, then, on intimate matters was dragged reluctantly and painfully from their souls, which preferred to hold a silent and mysterious communion. Even what he had said to Sylvester this evening seemed to Matthew an indecency, an exposure of an integral part of himself that the proud man kept hidden under a usually inscrutable veil of reserve. It was characteristic of both that the subject received no further allusion.