Michael went. It was morning in early autumn or late summer,
and the whole Sound lay spread out under the sun in perfect peace. The
woods of Mount Edgecumbe were almost black in the intense light, and far
away in the distance, for the air was clear, a sharp eye might just
discern the Eddystone, the merest speck, rising above the water. It was
a wonderful scene, but Michael saw nothing of it. When he came out of
the street which leads up from the town to the Hoe, he looked round as a
man might look for escape if a devouring fire were behind him, and he saw
his son a hundred yards in front of him gazing over the sea. With a cry
of thanks to his God Michael rushed forward, and just as Robert turned
round caught him in his arms, but could not speak.

At last he found a few words.

"It is all a mistake, Robert--it is all wrong. Susan is yours--she is
mine. Come back with me."

Robert, as much moved as his father, fell on his neck as if he had been a
woman, and then led him gently down the slope, away from curious persons
who had watched this remarkable greeting, and took Michael to be some
strange person who had accidentally met his child or a relative after
long separation.

"Foreigners, most likely; that's their way. It looks odd to English
people," remarked a lady to her daughter. It did look odd, and would
have looked odd to most of us--to us who belong to a generation which
sees in the relationship between father and son nothing more than in that
between the most casual acquaintances with the disadvantage of inequality
of age, a generation to whom the father is--often excusably--a person to
be touched twice a day with the tips of the fingers, a postponement of a
full share in the business, a person to be treated with--respect? Good
gracious! If it were not bad form, it would be a joke worth playing to
slip the chair away from the old man as he is going to sit down, and see
him sprawl on the floor. Why, in the name of heaven, does he come up to
the City every day? He ought to retire, and leave that expensive place
at Clapham, and take a cottage in some cheap part, somewhere in
Cambridgeshire or Essex.

"Robert," said Michael, "I have sinned, although it was for the Lord's
sake, and He has rebuked me. I thought to take upon myself His direction
of His affairs; but He is wiser than I. I believed I was sure of His
will, but I was mistaken. He knows that what I did, I did for love of
your soul, my child;