CHAPTER XXXIX "MY FATHER'S RESOLUTION"

The whole of the following morning my father spent with Mr. Leigh, who arrived in answer to his invitation soon after nine o'clock. When I returned to lunch he was still there, and it was not until evening that I found myself alone with my father.

"Hugh, I have something to say to you," he began gravely, "something important."

I waited in silence, preparing to do battle with a sinking heart. But as I looked into his worn, sad face, I saw there was a change in it which favoured little the chances of my opposition. The vacuity of hopeless weariness had gone, and in its place shone the light of a great resolution. How should I hope to bend it!

"Hugh, my boy," my father began, "I owe to you a greater debt than father ever owed son."

I would have interrupted him, but he held up his hand with an imperative gesture, which I could not choose but to obey. And so I listened in silence.

"I am not going to speak of this black cloud, which fate seems to have decreed should never be rolled away from my head," he went on. "What would be the use? Twelve months ago I tasted the very bottom-most depths of misery. It seemed to me then that I must either go mad or take my life. It was your letter, Hugh, which saved me from either fate. God bless you for it!"

He turned away as though to watch the sun shoot down its parting rays on the brown hillside. But I knew that he had another reason for looking away, and a womanish longing came over me to seize his hands and breathe out fond words. But somehow I could not. I don't know how others find it, but it always seems to me to be as difficult for a man to give vent to his feelings as it is for women to conceal them. Between man and man there is always a curious shrinking from the displayal of any emotion, more especially when it takes the form of affection. To me, at any rate, it has always seemed so, and, though my heart was full of a wild sympathy, and there was a great lump in my throat, I said nothing.

"From the moment when you came to me, Hugh," my father proceeded, "life began to be endurable. The months which we have spent together here have been by far the brightest I have ever known since we were all together in Devonshire. But we cannot go on for ever like this."

"Why not?" I dissented. "Life is very pleasant here to me, at any rate. Where could we find a better dwelling-place?"

He shook his head.

"Life is not given to us to drone away," he answered. "A man's life should include a career, should be always shaping itself towards a definite end. It is a crime against nature, against our great destiny, for a young man like you to live as we are doing; and it must not be."

"What would you have me do?" I cried; "cannot we do something together?"

He shook his head with a sad yet pleased smile.

"I have already decided," he said gravely; "chance has been kind to me, and has thrown in my way the man most likely to be of use to me. I will tell you more of this presently. For me the field of choice has not been large—for you it is illimitable. Hugh, this is what I chiefly want to say to you. It is my wish, my strong, heartfelt wish, that you should accept your grandfather's offer and take your rightful name and position."

I looked at him, incredulous, bewildered, hurt. Of all things I had least expected this.

"Yes," he went on, speaking more rapidly, and with a deep earnestness in his tone and manner, "it is my great wish. Do not think, Hugh, my boy, that I have not appreciated your chivalrous renunciation of it. The thought has been very dear to me, that my son has preferred poverty and obscurity out of mere resentment for my bitter wrongs. But of late I have seen this matter in a different light. Between my father and I, Hugh, there has been no injustice. He was hard, but he is a soldier, bred and born with all a soldier's instincts. He has honestly believed me guilty, and I bear him no resentment. He too must have suffered, Hugh, for I was his favourite son."

Suffered! Aye, I knew that he had suffered; but what were all his sufferings to me compared with my father's!

"Hugh, it has become a bitter thought to me that, innocent as I am of all offence against him, I am keeping away from him by keeping you with me—a great consolation; and not only that, but I am keeping you away from a great name, and a great position. It has grown upon me, Hugh, this bitter thought, and now I pray you, I command you as my son, that when you leave me, as leave me you must, you go to him."

"Why must I leave you, father?" I asked. "Let me go with you where you are going."

He shook his head.

"It is absolutely impossible. I am going, Hugh, with Mr. Leigh to travel in Northern Egypt. There is no race in the world in whom I have felt more interest, and Mr. Leigh has strengthened it. He has spent long years with them, living with a tribe of Arabs in a tent, and sharing their life. He knows their language and their customs. He has been as one of themselves, and, save in the forms of their religion, he has become one of them, and now he has had disquieting news of his favourite race. False prophets are working upon their imagination, and stirring them up to no good end, striving to incite them to rise against their best friends the English! Matters are fast coming to a crisis, and Mr. Leigh is going back to his old tribe to try and regain his former influence with them, and to keep them, at any rate, out of the troubles which are fast arising. He has asked me to go with him, Hugh, and I have consented. It is the sort of enterprise which I most desired. There is a little danger, it is true, but if the worst should happen I shall end my days not by my own hand, as one day I had feared that I should, but sword in hand with a clear conscience. Could a soldier wish for anything better?"

"I will go with you," I cried passionately. "Father, you shall not leave me thus!"

He left his chair, and, coming to me, laid his hand upon my shoulder. He had drawn himself up to his full height, and stood looking there every inch a soldier, stately, imperious, and commanding.

"Hugh," he said firmly, "you have been the best son to me a father ever had, and you will not thwart me now. Go with me to Egypt you cannot. I forbid it. Command you to take your rightful name, I cannot; but I desire it above all things. Take a day to think it over, and let me know your decision to-morrow. Shall we leave it like that?"

Sorrowfully I bowed my head, and then I left the room, wandering aimlessly out into the twilight, I cared not whither. Down the grass-grown avenue I went, and out on to the white road, with a great weight of grief upon my heart, and a dull despair numbing my senses. It seemed to me that the crisis of my life had come at last, and whichever way I looked black clouds were looming before me. Almost I wished that I might die.