CHAPTER XII.

Clifford Thornton passed on from that moment to a new chapter in his heart's history. He was too stern with himself to yield without a struggle to even any secret locked-up happiness; and so he tried to turn from the thought of Katharine Frensham as from something altogether out of his horizon. But, against his wishes, bright hopes sprang up within him. Unbidden and harshly rebuked possibilities of joy pressed themselves importunately on him. A fair vision of a fresh life rose before him. He dispelled it angrily, and returned to his former self, with the old tyranny of Marianne chafing him, and the added anxiety concerning his young son's love and loyalty. Nevertheless, he had passed on. He was of course too proud to ask Katharine what accusation Mrs Stanhope had brought against him, and too reserved to thank her the next morning for her words of warning. He did not even tell her that he had made up his mind to take an earlier boat to New York, and thus remove Alan from Mrs Stanhope's influence. His secret belief that he was responsible for Marianne's death made him morbidly anxious to keep Alan away from any one who might come between them. And Katharine Frensham's allusion to Mrs Stanhope's attitude towards him made him doubly apprehensive of her powers of making mischief. He knew that she had unceasingly stirred up strife between himself and Marianne, and he considered her capable of at least making the attempt to cause a breach between himself and his son. He knew that she disliked him, and that she believed he had always been hard and unkind to poor Marianne. Many a time Marianne herself had said to him:

"Julia at least appreciates and understands me; she at least knows of my unhappiness and your unkind indifference."

What would she say to Alan if by chance he passed her way? Alan, too, had always disliked her; he, too, had felt that she was an enemy to his father and himself; nevertheless she would certainly be able to influence him, for the very reason that his mother had died in circumstances of great sadness, and generous young hearts remember only the best things of the dead. Marianne would conquer as she had always conquered, and the boy's heart would turn from his father.

Clifford was greatly troubled.

"I must have my boy's love, I must have his loyalty," he said. "I cannot do without it. I desire with all my heart that he should think lovingly of his mother; but he must not, shall not turn from me. I have done nothing to deserve that he should not love me. He shall not see that woman if I can help it. She shall not have the chance of saying one word against me. His dear young heart shall keep its love and trust. The sadness of this tragedy in our lives will pass from him; it is passing from him even now. And the wound which I, in my selfishness, inflicted, shall be healed with a love which father never gave to son before. He must and shall believe in me. If I have missed other things, at least I will wrest this from life. She may say what she likes to the whole world, but not to him; he would not understand. If he were older, I would take my chance of his belief or disbelief. But the young judge and are hard."

Then in the midst of his distress he remembered Katharine, and again that vision rose before him. He tried to turn from it, but in vain.

"She believed in me," he said. "Whatever that woman may have said to her, she believed in me."

He went back to the hotel buoyed up in spite of himself, and found Alan moping in the reading-room. The boy looked miserable, and appeared to have no heart for anything that was suggested. Clifford remembered that he had been quiet at breakfast, and had eaten nothing. He had slipped away, evidently wanting to be alone. His father glanced at him with some uneasiness.

"What's the matter?" he asked kindly.

"Nothing," said Alan a little roughly, and he turned away with a slight flush on his face.

"Well, we shall soon be off," Clifford said. "I have changed our berths for a week earlier. In a fortnight we shall be in New York; then on we go to San Francisco, and so on to Japan. Knutty was right to send us away from 'Falun.' We shall both feel better for the change. I shall get rid of my moods and become quite a jolly companion for you. We'll have such splendid times. Won't we?"

"Yes," said Alan, but without any ring in his voice.

The father stood looking sad and puzzled.

"I am just going out to buy some books," he said. "Come, too?"

Alan shook his head.

"No, father," he said. "I thought I'd like to read."

Clifford nodded and went out.

"It will be all right between us when we are off on our travels," he thought. "We ought to have started long ago. I am glad I have berths for an earlier date. It will be better for him, and for me. And yet----"

He made a gesture of impatience with himself.

"It is high time that I took a journey," he said sternly.

He bought several dry treatises on scientific subjects, a new book on architecture for Alan, and a brochure on Alan de Walsingham. He was greatly pleased with this.

"Alan will be glad," he said. And then he found an amusing book about balloons, also for Alan. And after this he saw a Baedeker for Norway and Denmark.

"I should like Miss Frensham to have that from me," he said, as he handled it dreamily.

He hesitated over it, put it aside sternly, then went back to it, hesitated again, and finally bought it. He had a guilty smile on his face when he carried it off.

"After all, why not?" he said in excuse to himself.

Knutty would have been glad to know that he had allowed himself to go even thus far. Surely again she would have whispered, "I see daylight!"

He passed along Oxford Street, stopping now and then to look at the shop windows. He was thinking all the time what he should buy for Alan. He went back armed with books, chocolates, new penknives, sketch-blocks, some fresh kind of printing-paper, and a little pocket microscope.

The buying of that guide-book had exhilarated him astonishingly. He had the uplifting joy that afternoon of believing in himself; and because he believed in himself, he was feeling for the moment that all things were possible to him: to keep his boy's love, to take a reasonable view of poor Marianne's death, to mend his torn spirit, to lift his head, to lift his heart, and being free from harassment, to use to better advantage the gifts of his intellect, and--to pass on. He knew that this mood would change, but whilst it was on him he was grateful and almost jubilant.

"What should we poor mortals do unless we did believe in ourselves sometimes?" he said. "It is our moments of self-confidence which carry us through our years of self-doubting."

He came in like a schoolboy, tremendously pleased with his shopping, especially with that guide-book. He hurried to the reading-room, but Alan was not there; and so he hastened to the boy's bedroom, where he found him moping as before. One by one, with unconcealed eagerness and triumph, Clifford displayed his treasures. Alan did not seem to care. He scarcely looked at them, and even the pocket-microscope aroused no enthusiasm in him. Clifford gave no sign of noticing the boy's indifference and ungraciousness; but he was disappointed, and longed to tell Knutty. In the evening Alan was still in the same mood, and Clifford made up his mind to speak to him in the morning. They were both so reserved, that speech was not easy to either of them when it had to do with their inmost thoughts; and Clifford knew that Alan was suffering, not sulking. He let the boy go off to bed alone, and sat in the reading-room by himself.

All the old sadness came as a wave over him, and swept everything else from him. There was a rift in the lute; he had been conscious of it ever since Marianne's death. Knutty had laughed at his fears; but even she had noticed the boy's strained manner, and had tried to ease the tension. And then for a time things had gone better, and Alan had come nearer to his father again, back, indeed, to the old tender comradeship so dear to both of them. But now he was retreating once more. Clifford knew by instinct that Marianne was between them: Marianne in all her imperiousness, tenfold more imperious because of her tragic death.

An hour or so went by, and Clifford still lingered, given over to sad memories and anxious fears. Two or three people came in, glanced at the evening papers, and hurried away. He did not look up. But when Katharine opened the door, he knew. In spite of himself he came out of his sad reveries; in spite of himself a passionate gladness seized the man's heart. He forgot Marianne, forgot Mrs Stanhope. He forgot Alan. He forgot everything.

He threw all his former life, with its failures and burdens, to the winds, and rushed recklessly on, free for the moment--gloriously free--with the song of spring and hope resounding in his ears and urging him onwards, onwards!

He rose at once and went to meet her.

"Ah," he said. "I must just go and fetch that book about Denmark. I want to tell you several things about my old Knutty's country. I will not be one moment gone."

He hurried away, leaving her, too, with the song of love and life and hope echoing around her. Her loneliness had passed from her.

He ran up the stairs to his bedroom, found the book, and was just running down again, when he paused outside his boy's room, which was opposite to his own.

"I will slip in and see if he is asleep," he thought. "Then my mind will be easier about him."

He opened the door gently, treading as softly as a loving mother might tread who has come in the stealth of the night to see if all was well with the beloved bairns; to touch each one on the dear head, as in blessing, to smile at each one and then creep out again, satisfied and comforted. Alan was sleeping, but restlessly. The bedclothes were thrown off him, and he was murmuring something in his dreams. His father bent over him and covered him up. He did not wake, but went on, whispering a few disconnected words. Clifford bent to listen, and he heard, "_Mother_ ... _Mrs Stanhope_...." Then there came a sort of sob. The man's heart stood still. He waited with bowed head. The boy was dreaming of his mother. Was he perhaps remembering in his dream how he used to come and say to his father, "Mother has been with Mrs Stanhope to-day"? That was the only comment on Marianne which ever passed between father and son; it was their code, their signal of danger. Was it that? Or what was it? What was troubling him?

Suddenly the thought flashed through the man's mind:

"_Has he seen that woman somewhere?_"

And again the old miserable fear took possession of him. He longed to kneel down by the side of the bed and beg his little son to tell him everything that was in his heart, so that nothing and no one might ever come between them. He knew that when the morrow came he himself would be too proud and reserved to ask, and his boy too proud and reserved to own to any secret grief, however great. He had been like that himself as a boy--he was scarcely any different now--he, a grown man; he understood so well this terrible stone wall of reserve which the prisoners themselves would fain pierce. Supposing he were to waken the boy now and ask him, this very moment? Perhaps it would be easier to tell, this very moment.

He did not waken him after all; for Alan's restlessness subsided suddenly, and he passed into quiet sleep. So Clifford stole out of the room and stood waiting at the top of the staircase, in doubt as to whether he should go down or not. At last he went down, impelled against his will. Katharine saw at once the change of expression on his face.

"I feel greatly troubled, Miss Frensham," he said in his half-reluctant way. "My boy has been unhappy all the day, and now he is talking in his sleep about--about that Mrs Stanhope. After what you told me, I hope with all my heart that she has not seen him."

"Oh no, no. It can only be a coincidence," Katharine said.

"Do you really think so?" he said, with a faint smile on his troubled face.

"Indeed I do," she answered emphatically.

"Ah," he said, "the worst of it is that I do not believe in coincidences. There is a secret threadless thread of communication running through the whole region of thought and feeling and event."

"Then I must find something else to say to you," Katharine said, still undaunted.

And she looked at him, and for the very life of her she could not keep back the words which came with a rush to her lips:

"Believe in yourself more, Professor Thornton, as I do."