ir fathers
in the long-established firm. Then came the bitter disappointment in his
own son. But since he had suffered his son to die in his sins, reaping
the full harvest of his transgressions, he had felt that any forgiveness
shown to other offenders would be a cruel injustice to him. Yet as
Roland's passport and the children's photographs lay before him on his
office desk--the same desk at which Roland was sitting but a few months
ago, a man in the full vigor of life, with an apparently prosperous and
happy future lying before him--Mr. Clifford for a moment or two yielded
to the vain wish that Roland had thrown himself on his mercy. Yet his
conscience told him that he would have refused to show him mercy, and
his regret was mingled with a tinge of remorse.

His first care was to prevent the intelligence reaching Felicita by
means of the newspapers, and he sent immediately for Phebe Marlowe to
accompany him to the sea-side, in order to break the news to her.
Phebe's excessive grief astonished him, though she had so much natural
control over herself, in her sympathy for others, as to relieve him of
all anxiety on her account, and to keep Felicita's secret journey from
being suspected. But to Phebe, Roland's death was fraught with more
tragic circumstances than any one else could conceive. He was hastening
to meet his wife, possibly with some scheme for their future, which
might have hope and deliverance in it, when this calamity hurried him
away into the awful, unknown world, on whose threshold we are ever
standing. But for her ardent sympathy for Felicita, Phebe would have
been herself overwhelmed. It was the thought of her, with this terrible
and secret addition to her sorrow, which bore her through the long
journey and helped her to meet Felicita with something like calmness.

From the bay-window of the lodging-house Mr. Clifford watched Felicita
coming slowly and feebly toward the house. So fragile she looked, so
unutterably sorrow-stricken, that a rush of compassion and pity opened
the floodgates of his heart, and suffused his stern eyes with tears.
Doubtless Phebe had told her all. Yet she was coming alone to meet him,
her husband's enemy and persecutor, as if he was a friend. He would be a
friend such as she had never known before. There would be no vain
weeping, no womanish wailing in her; her grief was too deep for that.
And he would respect it; he would spare her all the pain he could. At
this moment, if Rol