night: not so much for the child's sake as for the
father's. The man had gone to sleep, he was dreaming a dream, and any
rough awakening must infallibly prove mortal. That he should survive the
child's death was inconceivable; and the fear of its dishonour made me
cover my face.

It was this continual preoccupation that screwed me up at last to a
remonstrance: a matter worthy to be narrated in detail. My lord and I
sat one day at the same table upon some tedious business of detail; I
have said that he had lost his former interest in such occupations; he
was plainly itching to be gone, and he looked fretful, weary, and
methought older than I had ever previously observed. I suppose it was
the haggard face that put me suddenly upon my enterprise.

"My lord," said I, with my head down, and feigning to continue my
occupation--"or, rather, let me call you again by the name of Mr. Henry,
for I fear your anger, and want you to think upon old times----"

"My good Mackellar!" said he; and that in tones so kindly that I had
near forsook my purpose. But I called to mind that I was speaking for
his good, and stuck to my colours.

"Has it never come in upon your mind what you are doing?" I asked.

"What I am doing?" he repeated; "I was never good at guessing riddles."

"What you are doing with your son?" said I.

"Well," said he, with some defiance in his tone, "and what am I doing
with my son?"

"Your father was a very good man," says I, straying from the direct
path. "But do you think he was a wise father?"

There was a pause before he spoke, and then: "I say nothing against
him," he replied. "I had the most cause perhaps; but I say nothing."

"Why, there it is," said I. "You had the cause at least. And yet your
father was a good man; I never knew a better, save on the one point,
nor yet a wiser. Where he stumbled, it is highly possible another man
should fall. He had the two sons----"

My lord rapped suddenly and violently on the table.

"What is this?" cried he. "Speak out!"

"I will, then," said I, my voice almost strangled with the thumping of
my heart. "If you continue to indulge Mr. Alexander, you are following
in your father's footsteps. Beware, my lord, lest (when he grows up)
your son should follow in the Master's."

I had never meant to put the thing so crudely; but in the extreme of
fear there comes a brutal kind of courage, the most brutal indeed of
all; and I burnt my ships with that plain word. I never