e had never been
one who would have taken any trouble about him after her death, hardly
even before it. John Lammie was the only person, except Dr. Anderson,
whose friendship he could suppose capable of this development. The
latter was the more likely person. But he would be too much for him
yet; he was not going to be treated like a child, he said to himself, as
often as the devil got uppermost.

My reader must understand that Andrew had never been a man of
resolution. He had been wilful and headstrong; and these qualities, in
children especially, are often mistaken for resolution, and generally go
under the name of strength of will. There never was a greater mistake.
The mistake, indeed, is only excusable from the fact that extremes meet,
and that this disposition is so opposite to the other, that it looks to
the careless eye most like it. He never resisted his own impulses, or
the enticements of evil companions. Kept within certain bounds at home,
after he had begun to go wrong, by the weight of opinion, he rushed into
all excesses when abroad upon business, till at length the vessel of his
fortune went to pieces, and he was a waif on the waters of the world.
But in feeling he had never been vulgar, however much so in action.
There was a feeble good in him that had in part been protected by its
very feebleness. He could not sin so much against it as if it had
been strong. For many years he had fits of shame, and of grief without
repentance; for repentance is the active, the divine part--the turning
again; but taking more steadily both to strong drink and opium, he
was at the time when De Fleuri found him only the dull ghost of Andrew
Falconer walking in a dream of its lost carcass.

CHAPTER XV. FATHER AND SON.

Once more Falconer retired, but not to take his violin. He could play no
more. Hope and love were swelling within him. He could not rest. Was it
a sign from heaven that the hour for speech had arrived? He paced up and
down the room. He kneeled and prayed for guidance and help. Something
within urged him to try the rusted lock of his father's heart. Without
any formed resolution, without any conscious volition, he found himself
again in his room. There the old man still sat, with his back to the
door, and his gaze fixed on the fire, which had sunk low in the grate.
Robert went round in front of him, kneeled on the rug before him, and
said the one word,

'Father!'

Andrew started violently, raised hi