echoed, his white lips shaking on each word.

"Certainly you will return to Dinan. For God's sake--" The Squire
checked himself, and his tenderness swelled suddenly above his scorn.
He rose from the table, stepped to the boy, and laid a hand on his
shoulder. "Walter," he said, "we have somehow managed to make a mess of
it. You have behaved disreputably; and if the blame of it, starting from
somewhere in the past, lies at your mother's door or mine, we must
sorrowfully beg your pardon. The thing is done: it is reparable, but only
through your suffering. You are the last a Cleeve, and with our faults we
a Cleeves have lived cleanly and honourably. Be a man: take up this
burden which I impose, and redeem your honour. For your mother's sake and
mine I could ask it: but how can we separate ourselves from you?
Look in my face. Are there no traces in it of these last two years?
Boy, boy, you have not been the only one to suffer! If further suffering
of ours could help you, would it not be given? But a man's honour lies
ultimately in his own hands. Go, lad--endure what you must--and God
support you with the thought that we are learning pride in you!"

"It will kill me!"

The lad blurted it out with a sob. His father's hand dropped from his
shoulder.

"Are you incapable of understanding that it might do worse?" he asked
coldly, and turned his back in despair.

Walter went out unsteadily, fumbling his way.

The Squire dined alone that night, and after dinner sat long alone before
his library fire--how long he scarcely knew; but Narracott, the butler,
had put up the bolts and retired, leaving only the staircase-lantern
burning, when Father Halloran knocked at the library door and was bidden
to enter.

"I wished to speak with you about Walter--to learn your decision," he
explained.

"You have not seen him?"

"Not since he came to explain himself."

"He is in his room, I believe. He is to be ready at eight to-morrow to
start with me for Plymouth."

"I looked for that decision," said the priest, after a moment's silence.

"Would you have suggested another?" The question came sharp and stern;
but a moment later the Squire mollified it, turning to the priest and
looking him straight in the eyes. "Excuse me; I am sure you would not."

"I thank you," was the answer. "No: since I have leave to say so, I think
you have taken the only right course."

The two men still faced one another. Fate had made them