d, the old
trusting smile of a child, that had been, during his time abroad,
Martin's clearest memory of him.

"Oh, is that you? Come in."

Martin came forward and his father put his arm round his neck as though
for support.

"I'm tired--horribly tired." Martin took him to the shabby broken
arm-chair and made him sit down. Himself sat in his old place on the
arm of the chair, his hand against his father's neck.

"Father, come away--just for a week--with me. We'll go right off into
the country to Glebeshire or somewhere, quite alone. We won't see a
soul. We'll just walk and eat and sleep. And then you'll come back to
your work here another man."

"No, Martin. I can't yet. Not just now."

"Why not, father?"

"I have work, work that can't be left."

"But if you go on like this you'll be so that you can't go on any
longer. You'll break down. You know what the doctor said about your
heart. You aren't taking any care at all."

"Perhaps ... perhaps ... but for a week or two I must just go on,
preparing ... many things ... Martin."

He suddenly looked up at his son, putting his hand on his knee.

"Yes, father."

"You're being good now, aren't you?"

"Good, father?"

"Yes ... Not doing anything you or I'd be ashamed of. I know in the
past ... but that's been forgotten, that's over. Only now, just now,
it's terribly important for us both that you should be good ... like
you used to be ... when you were a boy."

"Father, what have people been saying to you about me?"

"Nothing--nothing. Only I think about you so much. I pray about you all
the time. Soon, as you say, we'll go away together ... only now, just
now, I want you with me here, strong by my side. I want your help."

Martin took his father's hand, felt how dry and hot and feverish it was.

"I'll be with you," he said. "I promise that. Don't you listen to what
any one says. I won't leave you." He would like to have gone on and
asked other questions, but the old man seemed so worn out and exhausted
that he was afraid of distressing him, so he just sat there, his hands
on his shoulders, and suddenly the white head nodded, the beard sank
over the breast and huddled up in the chair as though life itself had
left him; the old man slept.

During the next four days Martin and Maggie corresponded through the
fair hands of Jane. He wrote only short letters, and over them he
struggled. He seemed to see Maggie through a tangled mist of persons
and motives and