for
you to order anything else you want. I packed the portmanteau with my
own hands, Polly.'

He paused again, for in his own way he was genuinely moved: but the boy
still stood there, staring out of the window, and answered never a word.

'You've got to listen,' said the elder, rising and shaking him by the
shoulder. 'You think I have acted like a scoundrel, and you're ashamed
of your old father. I dare say you're right, my lad, but it wasn't so
much my fault as you might fancy. There was a leak between that mine of
old General Airey's and your Uncle James's when I went into partnership
with him, and, after all, we only helped Nature just a little bit, and
there's many a man walking about this minute, holding his head high, who
has done more wrong than I have.'

'For God's sake, don't!' cried Polson, breaking silence for the first
time. 'It's bad enough as it is. Don't make it worse by talking about
it.'

'I won't, Polly,' said Jervase. 'I'll do anything you like if you'll
only shake hands and say as you forgive me. Now there's two thousand
pound on this here table, and there's the letter from your agents; and
you can be off to London within an hour, and have your heart's desire.
What's the good of being stupid?'

He took a great bandana handkerchief from the tail pocket of his
respectable black coat, and blew his nose resoundingly, and wiped his
eyes. He was very deeply moved indeed, and Polson was profoundly sorry
for him; but there was a sick whirl in the lad's mind which robbed
him of any clear power of thought and seemed indeed to deaden feeling
itself. Only he knew that nothing could undo his shame. Nothing could
ever make him respect himself again. Nothing could give back to him the
old sense of honour, the knowledge that he came of honest folk.

'Look here, Polly,' Jervase broke out again, 'I haven't bred you up
to be a common soldier. When I was a young and struggling man, by
comparison with what I am now, I said to myself, "I'll make my lad a
gentleman." I sent you to Rugby, and I sent you to Oxford, and I never
stinted neither love nor money. And if I _was_ a bit over-greedy and in
a hurry to be rich, I did what I did a good deal more for your sake than
my own.'

'Leave bad alone, father,' said Polson, with an almost savage sternness.
'Can't you see that you make things worse with every word you speak?
Isn't it enough for me to know what I know already, but you must make me
a partner in that shamef