FullReads

“It will kill me!”

The lad blurted it out with a sob. His father’s hand dropped from his shoulder.

“Are you incapable of understanding that it might do worse?” he asked coldly, and turned his back in despair.

Walter went out unsteadily, fumbling his way.

The Squire dined alone that night, and after dinner sat long alone before his library fire–how long he scarcely knew; but Narracott, the butler, had put up the bolts and retired, leaving only the staircase-lantern burning, when Father Halloran knocked at the library door and was bidden to enter.

“I wished to speak with you about Walter–to learn your decision,” he explained.

“You have not seen him?”

“Not since he came to explain himself.”

“He is in his room, I believe. He is to be ready at eight to-morrow to start with me for Plymouth.”

“I looked for that decision,” said the priest, after a moment’s silence.

“Would you have suggested another?” The question came sharp and stern; but a moment later the Squire mollified it, turning to the priest and looking him straight in the eyes. “Excuse me; I am sure you would not.”

“I thank you,” was the answer. “No: since I have leave to say so, I think you have taken the only right course.”

The two men still faced one another. Fate had made them antagonists in this house, and the antagonism had lasted over many years. But no petulant word had ever broken down the barrier of courtesy between them: each knew the other to be a gentleman.

“Father Halloran,” said the Squire gravely, “I will confess to you that I have been tempted. If I could honestly have spared the lad–“

“I know,” said the priest, and nodded while Mr. a Cleeve seemed to search for a word. “If any sacrifice of your own could stand for payment, you could have offered it, sir.”

“What I fear most is that it may kill his mother.” The Squire said it musingly, but his voice held a question.

“She will suffer.” The priest pondered his opinion as he gave it, and his words came irregularly by twos and threes. “It may be hard–for some while–to make her see the–the necessity. Women fight for their own by instinct–right or wrong, they do not ask themselves. If you reason, they will seize upon any sophistry to confute you–to persuade themselves. Doubtless the instinct comes from God; but to men, sometimes, it makes them seem quite unscrupulous.”

“We have built much upon Walter. If our hopes have come down with a crash, we must rebuild, and build them better. I think that, for the future, you and I must consult one another and make allowances. The fact is, I am asking you–as it were–to make terms with me over the lad. ‘A house divided,’ you know. . . Let us have an end of divisions. I am feeling terribly old to-night.”

The priest met his gaze frankly, and had half extended his hand, when a sudden sound arrested him–a sound at which the eyes of both men widened with surprise and their lips were parted–the sharp report of a gun. Not until it shattered the silence of the woods around Cleeve Court could you have been aware how deep the silence had lain. Its echoes banged from side to side of the valley, and in the midst of their reverberation a second gun rang out.

“The mischief!” exclaimed the Squire. “That means poachers, or I’m a Dutchman. Macklin’s in trouble. Will you come?” He stepped quickly to the door. “Where did you fix the sound? Somewhere up the valley, near the White Rock, eh?”

Father Halloran’s face was white as a ghost’s. “It–it was outside the house,” he stammered.

“Outside? What the deuce–Of course it was outside!” He paused, and seemed to read the priest’s thought. “Oh, for God’s sake, man–” Hurrying into the passage, and along it to the hall, he called up, “Walter! Walter!” from the foot of the staircase. “There, you see!” he muttered, as Walter’s voice answered from above.