e put off by ony lies or inventions. Ye've
been alaun in the Hoarstone Fields all day? What took ye there? And hoo
have ye passed the time? I'll know!' he added, after another long pause.

Perhaps there was nobody in the world who stood less chance of knowing,
but how should Armstrong have guessed that? He was a just man, and as
kind-hearted a father as might have been found within a hundred miles.
If he could have known the truth, he would not only have been disarmed,
but proud and glad. But Paul at this time had a holy terror of him. It
grew to a close and reverent affection later on, and there was such a
confidence between this pair as is not often found. But now? Paul would
have suffered anything rather than tell the truth. It was not that he
would not. He could not His tongue was fettered.

'Noo, Paul,' said Armstrong. 'Let's have a luik at this. Ye're not
supposin' in your inmost mind that I'm in the least small degree likely
to believe the yarn ye've tauld me. Ye've been in the lonely fields all
day, doing naething and speaking to naebody. And for that ye've stayed
away from your meals, an' noo ye're in hiding like a creminal? It hasn't
an air o' pro-babeelity, Paul; it has _no_ air o' pro-babeelity. You see
that?

Paul saw it--quite as clearly as his father. But how was it to be
explained? Could Paul say, 'My good sir, I am a boy of genius. I have
been filled with the Divine afflatus, and have been driven into solitude
by my own thoughts. I have been so held by dreams of beauty that I have
forgotten everything'? Could Paul offer that intolerable cheeky boast?
And yet to offer to explain was to do that, and nothing less than that.

'Vary well,' said Armstrong. 'Ye'll go to your bed, and I'd advise ye
to thenk the matter over. I'll gev ye till morning. But I'll have the
truth, or I'll know the reason why.'

The gas went out under Armstrong's thumb and finger on the tap, and in
the sudden darkness the gray, patient, reproachful face still burned in
the boy's eyes.

'Father!' said Paul, and stretching out both hands, he caught hold of
him by the sleeve.

'Well!' answered Armstrong sternly.

He thought it his duty to be stern, but the tone killed the rising
impulse of courage in Paul's heart He could have stammered a hint of the
truth then, and the darkness would have been friendly to him. A caress,
a hand on head or shoulder, would have done the business, but caresses
were not in fashion in the Armstrong ho