inside.
"Why, my son, my son!"

"Ah, he's sick--he's come home sick!" cried the mother, holding him a
little way off to look at his face. "Ah! the poor fellow's sick! Come
in, come in. And this is why we had no letter! And to think yesterday
was Christmas Day! And we had the pies and the turkey!"

"My son, are you unwell--have you been unwell? Sit here, lie here."

The lad's face was overspread with ghastly pallor; he had lost control
of himself.

"I have not been sick. I am perfectly well," he said at length, looking
from one to the other with forlorn, remorseful affection. They had
drawn a chair close, one on each side of him. "How are you, mother? How
are you, father?"

The change in HIM!--that was all they saw. As soon as he spoke, they
knew he was in good health. Then the trouble was something else, more
terrible. The mother took refuge in silence as a woman instinctively
does at such times; the father sought relief in speech.

"What is the matter? What happened?"

After a moment of horrible silence, David spoke:--

"Ah, father! How can I ever tell you!"

"How can you ever tell me?"

The rising anger mingled with distrust and fear in those words! How
many a father knows!

"Oh, what is it!" cried his mother, wringing her hands, and bursting
into tears. She rose and went to her seat under the mantelpiece.

"What have you done?" said his father, also rising and going back to
his seat.

There was a new sternness in his voice; but the look which returned
suddenly to his eyes was the old life-long look.

The lad sat watching his father, dazed by the tragedy he was facing.

"It is my duty to tell you as soon as possible--I suppose I ought to
tell you now."

"Then speak--why do you sit there--"

The words choked him.

"Oh! oh!--"

"Mother, don't!--"

"What is it?"

"Father, I have been put out of college and expelled from the church."

How loud sounded the minute noises of the fire--the clocks--the blows
of an axe at the woodpile--the lowing of a cow at the barn.

"FOR WHAT?"

The question was put at length in a voice flat and dead. It summed up a
lifetime of failure and admitted it. After an interval it was put
again:--

"FOR WHAT?"

"I do not believe the Bible any longer. I do not believe in
Christianity."

"Oh, don't do THAT!"

The cry proceeded from David's mother, who crossed quickly and sat
beside her husband, holding his hand, perhaps not knowing her own
motive.

This, then