He rose, and treading softly, left the room and went to his study. The fire was not yet out. He stirred it and made it blaze, lighted his candles, took a book from a shelf, sat down, and tried to read. But it was no use. His thoughts were such that they could hold no company with other thoughts. The world of his kind was shut out; he was a man alone because he was unforgiving and unforgiven. His soul slid into the old groove of misery, and so the night slid away.

The nominal morning, if not the dawn was near, when the door of the old library opened so softly that he heard nothing, and before he was aware of it, a child in a long white gown stood by his side. He started violently. It was Mark—but asleep. He had seen his mother and father more than usually troubled all day and their trouble had haunted him in his sleep. It had roused him without waking him from his dreams, and the Spirit of love had directed him to the presence of his father. He stood a little way from him, his face white as his dress, not a word coming from his mouth, silent, haunted by a smile of intense quiet, as of one who, being comforted, would comfort. There was also in the look a slight something like idiocy, for his soul was not precisely with his body. His thoughts, though concerning his father, were elsewhere. The circumstances of his soul and of his body were not the same, and so, being twinned, that is, divided, he was as one beside himself. His eyes, although open, evidently saw nothing, and thus he stood for a little time.

There had never been tender relations between Mark and his father like those between the boy and his mother and sister. His father was always kind to him, but between him and his boys he had let grow a kind of hard skin. Even when as tiniest children they came to be kissed before going to bed, he did not like the contact of their faces with his. No woman, and perhaps not many men will understand this, but it was always a relief to Mr. Raymount to have the nightly ceremony over. He thought there was nothing he would not do for their good, and I think his heart must in the main have been right toward them. But the clothes of his affections somehow did not sit easy on him, and there was a good deal in his behaviour to Cornelius that had operated unfavourably on the mind of the youth. Even Mark, although, as I have said, he loved him dearly, was yet a little afraid of him—never went to him with a confidence, never snuggled close to him, never sat down by his side to read his book in a heaven of twilight peace, as he would with his mother. He would never have gone to this father’s room for refuge from sleeplessness.