‘Yes, I am certainly in earnest.’

’And though you are going to risk your capital in a precarious business, you will only be doing what is done daily by enterprising men.  I could wish that your position were more secure;—­but that now cannot be helped.’

‘My bed is as I have made it.  I quite understand that, sir.’

’Thinking of all this, I have endeavoured to reconcile myself to your going.’  Then he paused a moment, considering what he should next say.  And his son was silent, knowing that something further was to come.  ’Had you remained in England we could hardly have lived together as father and son should live.  You would have been dependent on me, and would have rebelled against that submission which a state of dependence demands.  There would have been nothing for you but to have waited,—­and almost to have wished, for my death.’

‘No, sir; never; never that.’

’It would have been no more than natural.  I shall hear from you sometimes?’

‘Certainly, sir.’

’It will give an interest to my life if you will write occasionally.  Whither do you go to-morrow?’

It had certainly been presumed, though never said, that this last visit to the old home was to be only for one day.  The hired gig had been kept; and in his letter the son had asked whether he could be taken in for Thursday night.  But now the proposition that he should go so soon seemed to imply a cold-blooded want of feeling on his part.  ’I need not be in such a hurry, sir,’ he said.

’Of course, it shall be as you please, but I do not know that you will do any good by staying.  A last month may be pleasant enough, or even a last week, but a last day is purgatory.  The melancholy of the occasion cannot be shaken off.  It is only the prolonged wail of a last farewell.’  All this was said in the old man’s ordinary voice, but it seemed to betoken if not feeling itself, a recognition of feeling which the son had not expected.

‘It is very sad,’ said the son.

’Therefore, why prolong it?  Stand not upon the order of your going but go at once,—­seeing that it is necessary that you should go.  Will you take any more wine?  No?  Then let us go into the other room.  As they are making company of you and have lighted another fire, we will do as they would have us.’  Then for the rest of the evening there was some talk about books, and the father, who was greatly given to reading, explained to his son what kind of literature would, as he thought, fit in best with the life of a gold-digger.

After what had passed, Caldigate, of course, took his departure on the following morning.  Good-bye said the old man, as the son grasped his hand, ‘Good-bye.’  He made no overture to come even as far as the hall in making this his final adieu.

‘I trust I may return to see you in health.’

‘It may be so.  As to that we can say nothing.  Good-bye.’  Then, when the son had turned his back, the father recalled him, by a murmur rather than by a word,—­but in that moment he had resolved to give way a little to the demands of nature.  Good-bye my son,’ he said, in a low voice, very solemnly; ‘May God bless you and preserve you.’  Then he turned back at once to his own closet.