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‘I called her your mistress,’ he shouted, ‘and I might have called her a – ‘

‘That is an unmanly lie,’ replied Dick, slowly.

‘Dick!’ cried the father, ‘Dick!’

‘I do not care,’ said the son, strengthening himself against his own heart; ‘I – I have said it, and it is the truth.’

There was a pause.

‘Dick,’ said the old man at last, in a voice that was shaken as by a gale of wind, ‘I am going. I leave you with your friends, sir – with your friends. I came to serve you, and now I go away a broken man. For years I have seen this coming, and now it has come. You never loved me. Now you have been the death of me. You may boast of that. Now I leave you. God pardon you.’

With that he was gone; and the three who remained together heard his horse’s hoofs descend the lane. Esther had not made a sign throughout the interview, and still kept silence now that it was over; but the Admiral, who had once or twice moved forward and drawn back again, now advanced for good.

‘You are a man of spirit, sir,’ said he to Dick; ‘but though I am no friend to parental interference, I will say that you were heavy on the governor.’ Then he added with a chuckle: ‘You began, Richard, with a silver spoon, and here you are in the water like the rest. Work, work, nothing like work. You have parts, you have manners; why, with application you may die a millionaire!’ Dick shook himself. He took Esther by the hand, looking at her mournfully.

‘Then this is farewell,’ he said.

‘Yes,’ she answered. There was no tone in her voice, and she did not return his gaze.

‘For ever,’ added Dick.

‘For ever,’ she repeated mechanically.

‘I have had hard measure,’ he continued. ‘In time I believe I could have shown you I was worthy, and there was no time long enough to show how much I loved you. But it was not to be. I have lost all.’

He relinquished her hand, still looking at her, and she turned to leave the room.

‘Why, what in fortune’s name is the meaning of all this?’ cried Van Tromp. ‘Esther come back!’

‘Let her go,’ said Dick, and he watched her disappear with strangely mingled feelings. For he had fallen into that stage when men have the vertigo of misfortune, court the strokes of destiny, and rush towards anything decisive, that it may free them from suspense though at the cost of ruin. It is one of the many minor forms of suicide.

‘She did not love me,’ he said, turning to her father.

‘I feared as much,’ said he, ‘when I sounded her. Poor Dick, poor Dick. And yet I believe I am as much cut up as you are. I was born to see others happy.’

‘You forget,’ returned Dick, with something like a sneer, ‘that I am now a pauper.’

Van Tromp snapped his fingers.

‘Tut!’ said he; ‘Esther has plenty for us all.’

Dick looked at him with some wonder. It had never dawned upon him that this shiftless, thriftless, worthless, sponging parasite was yet, after and in spite of all, not mercenary in the issue of his thoughts; yet so it was.

‘Now,’ said Dick, ‘I must go.’

‘Go?’ cried Van Tromp. ‘Where? Not one foot, Mr. Richard Naseby. Here you shall stay in the meantime! and – well, and do something practical – advertise for a situation as private secretary – and when you have it, go and welcome. But in the meantime, sir, no false pride; we must stay with our friends; we must sponge a while on Papa Van Tromp, who has sponged so often upon us.’

‘By God,’ cried Dick, ‘I believe you are the best of the lot.’

‘Dick, my boy,’ replied the Admiral, winking, ‘you mark me, I am not the worst.’

‘Then why,’ began Dick, and then paused. ‘But Esther,’ he began again, once more to interrupt himself. ‘The fact is, Admiral,’ he came out with it roundly now, ‘your daughter wished to run away from you to-day, and I only brought her back with difficulty.’