t quite plainly? ..."

His father, still very gently and hesitating as though he found it
difficult to catch the words that he wished (his voice had still the
remoteness of some one speaking, who was far from them both), said:

"You'll think it odd, Martin, when you know how often I have to preach
and speak in public, that I should find it hard to talk--but I never,
with any man alone, could find words easily. I know so little. It is
God's punishment for some selfish nervousness and shyness in me, that
even now when I am an old man I cannot speak as one man to another.
There was once, I remember, a young man who had heard me preach and was
moved by my words and begged to see me in private. He came one evening;
he was tempted to commit a terrible sin. He depended upon me to save
him and I could say nothing. I struggled, I prayed, but it was
incredible to me that any man could be tempted to such a thing. I spoke
only conventional words that meant nothing. He went away from me, and
his lost soul is now upon me and will always be ... but, Martin, what I
would say beyond everything is--do not let us separate. Be free as you
must be free, as you should be free--but stay with me--remain with me.
I am an old man; I have longed for you as I think no other father can
ever have longed for his son. They tell me that I cannot live many more
years. God chooses His time. Be with me, Martin, for a little while
even though I may seem old to you and foolish. Perhaps things will come
back to you that you have long forgotten. You were once pledged and it
was a vow that is not easily removed--but it is enough for the present
if you will be with me a little, give me some of your time--give the
old days a chance to come back." He laid his hand upon his son's.

The sudden touch of the dry, hot, trembling skin filled Martin's heart
with the strangest confusion of affection, embarrassment and some
familiar pathos. In just that way ten years before he had felt his
father's hand and had thought: "How old he's getting! ... How I shall
miss him! ... I hope nothing happens to him!" In the very balance of
his father's sentences and the deliberate choice of words there had
been something old-fashioned and remote from all the life and scramble
of Martin's recent years. Now he took his father's hand in his own
strong grasp and said gruffly:

"That's all right, father ... I'm not going while you want me ... You
and I ... always ... it's just the same n