to forfeit your good opinion," Mr. Excell went
on, "especially now when you are leaving me, perhaps forever. I think
you are right in going. There is no chance for you here; perhaps out
there in the great West you may get a start. Of my shortcomings as a
father you know, and I suppose you can never love me as a son should,
but I think you will see some day that I am not a hypocrite, and that I
failed as a father more through neglect and passion than through any
deliberate injustice."

The boy struggled for words to express himself; at last he burst forth:
"I don't blame you at all, only let me go where I can do something worth
while: you bother me so."

The minister dropped his son's hand and a look of the deepest sadness
came over his face. He had failed--Harold was farther away from him than
ever. He turned and went out without another word.

That he had hurt his father Harold knew, but in exactly what other way
he could have acted he could not tell. The overanxiety on the father's
part irritated the boy. Had he been less morbid, less self-accusing, he
would have won. Harold passionately loved strength and decision,
especially in a big man like his father, who looked like a soldier and a
man of action, and who ought not to cry like a woman. If only he would
act all the time as he did when he threw the sheriff across the walk
that day on the street. "I wish he'd stop preaching and go to work at
something," he said to Jack. The psychology of the father's attitude
toward him was incomprehensible. He could get along very well without a
father; why could not his father get along without him? He hated all
this fuss, anyway. It only made him feel sorry and perplexed, and he
wished sincerely that his father would let him alone.

Jack brought a letter from Mary which troubled him.

"I am going home in March, a week before the term ends. Mother
isn't very well, and just as soon as I can I must go. If I do, you
must not forget me."

Of course he wrote in reply, saying:

"Don't you go till I see you. You must come in and see
me. Can't you come in when Jack does, he knows all about us,
COME SURE. I can't go without a good-by kiss. Don't you go
back on me now. Come."

"I'm afraid to come," she replied, "people would find out
everything and talk. Besides you mustn't kiss me. We are not
regularly engaged, and so it would not be right."

"We'll be engaged in about two minutes if you'll meet me wit