nder their marriage.
Adam--I told you that I forgave you. I have forgiven you--God knows. But
you broke my life at the beginning like a thread. You don't know all
there has been to forgive--indeed, you don't. And you are asking me to
risk Clare's life in your son's hands, as I risked mine in yours. It's
too much to ask."

"But you say yourself that she loves him."

"She cares for him--that was what I said. I don't believe in love as I
did. You can't expect me to."

She turned her face away from him, but he saw the bitterness in it, and
it hurt him. He waited a moment before he answered her.

"Don't visit my sins on your daughter, Lucy," he said at last. "Don't
forget that love was a fact before you and I were born, and will be a
fact long after we are dead. If these two love each other, let them
marry. I hope that Clare is like you, but don't take it for granted
that Brook is like me. He's not. He's more like his mother."

"And your wife?" said Mrs. Bowring suddenly. "What would she say to
this?"

"My wife," said Sir Adam, "is a practical woman."

"I never was. Still--if I knew that Clare loved him--if I could believe
that he could love her faithfully--what could I do? I couldn't forbid
her to marry him. I could only pray that she might be happy, or at least
that she might not break her heart."

"You would probably be heard, if anybody is. And a man must believe in
God to explain your existence," added Sir Adam, in a gravely meditative
tone. "It's the best argument I know."

CHAPTER XIV

Brook Johnstone had gone to his room when he had left his father, and
was hastily packing his belongings, for he had made up his mind to leave
Amalfi at once without consulting anybody. It is a special advantage of
places where there is no railway that one can go away at a moment's
notice, without waiting tedious hours for a train. Brook did not
hesitate, for it seemed to him the only right thing to do, after Clare's
refusal, and after what his father had told him. If she had loved him,
he would have stayed in spite of every opposition. If he had never been
told her mother's history, he would have stayed and would have tried to
make her love him. As it was, he set his teeth and said to himself that
he would suffer a good deal rather than do anything more to win the
heart of Mrs. Bowring's daughter. He would get over it somehow in the
end. He fancied Clare's horror if she should ever know the truth, and
his fear of h