led frankness, Robert was reticent and even
suspicious, Michael's heart almost broke, and he went up to his room, and
shutting the door, wept bitter tears. His sorrow clothed itself, even at
its uttermost, with no words of his own, but always in those of the Book.

"O my son Absalom!" he cried, "my son, my son, Absalom! Would God I had
died for thee, O Absalom, my son, my son!"

He remembered also what his own married life had been; he always trusted
that Robert would have a wife who would be a help to him, and he felt
sure that this girl Shipton, with her pretty rosy face and blue eyes, had
no brains. To think that his boy should repeat the same inexplicable
blunder, that she was _silly_, that he would never hear from her lips a
serious word! What will she be if trouble comes on him? What will she
be when a twelvemonth has passed? What will _he_ be when he sits by his
fireside in long winter evenings, alone with her, and finds she cannot
interest him for a moment?

Worse still, she was not a child of God. He did not know that she ever
sought the Lord. She went to church once a day and read her prayers, and
that was all. She was not one of the chosen, and she might corrupt him,
and he might fall away, and so commit the sin against the Holy Ghost "O
Lord, O Lord!" he prayed one evening, in rebellion rather than as a
suppliant, "what has Thy servant done that Thou shouldst visit him thus?"
He almost mutinied, but he was afraid, and his religion came to his
rescue, and he broke down into "And yet not my will, the will of the
meanest of sinners, but Thine be done." He made up his mind once or
twice that he would solemnly remonstrate with his son, but his aspect was
such whenever the subject was approached, even from a distance, that he
dared not. Hitherto the boy had joyfully submitted to be counselled, and
had sought his father's direction, but now, if the conversation turned in
a certain direction, a kind of savage reserve was visible, at which
Michael was frightened. He was a man of exceedingly slow conception.
For days and days he would often debate within himself, and at the end
the fog was as thick as ever. He complained once to David Trevenna of
this failing, and David gave him a useful piece of practical advice.

"Leave it alone, master. The more you thinks, the more you muddle
yourself. Leave it alone, and when it comes into your head, try to get
rid of it. In a week or so the thing will do more