Then the father said very quietly, “Phil, your teacher was here a little while ago.  He tells me you were not at school to-day, nor yesterday, nor the day before.  And we thought you were.  You let us think you were.  And you don’t know how bad I feel about this.  I have always said I could trust my boy Phil.  I always have trusted you.  And here you have been a living lie for three whole days.  I can’t tell you how bad I feel about it.”

Well, it was hard on the boy to be talked to in that gentle way.  If his father had spoken to him roughly, or had taken him out to the wood-shed, in the rear of the dwelling, it wouldn’t have been nearly so hard.

Then the father said, “We’ll get down and pray.”  And the thing was getting harder for Phil all the time.  He didn’t want to pray just then.  Most people don’t about that time.

And they got down on their knees, side by side.  And the father poured out his heart in prayer.  And the boy listened.  Somehow he saw himself in the looking-glass of his knee-joints as he hadn’t before.  It is queer about that mirror of the knee-joints, the things you see in it.  Most people don’t like to use it much.  And they got up from their knees.  The father’s eyes were wet.  And Phil’s eyes were not dry.

Then the father said, “My boy, there’s a law of life, that where there is sin there is suffering.  You can’t get those two things apart.  Wherever there is suffering there has been sin, somewhere, by somebody.  And wherever there is sin there will be suffering, for some one, somewhere; and likely most for those closest to you.”

“Now,” he said, “my boy, you have done wrong.  So we’ll do this.  You go up-stairs to the attic.  I’ll make a little bed for you there in the corner.  We’ll bring your meals up to you at the usual times.  And you stay up in the attic three days and three nights, as long as you’ve been a living lie.”  And the boy didn’t say a word.  They climbed the attic steps.  The father kissed his boy, and left him alone.

Supper-time came, and the father and mother sat down to eat.  But they couldn’t eat for thinking of their son.  The longer they chewed on the food the bigger and drier it got in their mouths.  And swallowing was clear out of the question.  And the mother said, “Why don’t you eat?” And he said softly, “Why don’t you eat?” And, with a catch in her throat, she said, “I can’t, for thinking of Phil.”  And he said, “That’s what’s bothering me.”

And they rose from the supper-table, and went into the sitting-room.  He took up the evening paper, and she began sewing.  His eyesight was not very good.  He wore glasses, and to-night they seemed to blur up.  He couldn’t see the print distinctly.  It must have been the glasses, of course.  So he took them off, and wiped them with great care, and then found the paper was upside-down.  And she tried to sew.  But the thread broke, and she couldn’t seem to get the thread into the needle again.  How we all reveal ourselves in just such details!