He listened patiently as she spoke—yet not despairingly. He still had something of that hopefulness in him which had been at once the curse and the alleviation of his not unhappy but most unfortunate life: for such men trouble rather their descendants than themselves.

Hilda made the position plain enough. If she had been—what she thanked God she was not—a cold, calculating sort of person, there would have been nothing for it but to sell Rackham; it was not entailed, and even so, she would have lost thousands on the deal. But she was not like that. She assured him she was not like that. She was willing to lose and to take Rackham over as it stood in cancellation of all debts. She was glad to make the sacrifice. She would not dream of disturbing his illness with pressure of any kind. A will of his in her favour was one way. If he disliked that, she wished to be generous; she would make it a purchase. She would accept it against the debt.

Henry heard her, and he saw no way out.

“You will do the right thing by the boy,” he said. “He’s the only child. Hilda, you will do the right thing, of course?”

She assured him of that; but what the right thing meant was left vague, as everything had been left vague in Henry Maple’s life. It mattered little anyhow, she thought; Rackham was hers to dispose of, and there was still long life before her. The right thing by the boy meant, let it be hoped, some regard for his proper up-bringing: then, of course, he would stand somehow vaguely at Rackham, so long as Rackham was their home, as the heir. So let it stand at that.

*      *      *      *      *

When the end came (it was the foul winter of ’19 that killed him) it came rapidly enough. But just before that end Henry Maple rallied singularly in intelligence and decision. It was like that little return of the flood in certain havens before the final ebb. It was as though he had a task to perform.

Such men postpone: but now there could be no postponement. He spoke to the boy.

“John,” he said, “you know that I have been very ill, and you have seen me getting worse.” He looked at the tall boy—the tall young man, he seemed, for the first time, in his father’s eyes; strong in his eighteen years—and understood how true it is that children are a mitigation of the memory of death. Something far stronger than his own youth was there: as tender, but more sturdy, and (he secretly hoped) more obstinate.

“Yes, Papa,” said John. He took his father’s hand where it lay upon the rug of the invalid chair, as a woman might have done. “But you will get better.”

Henry Maple slightly shook his head.

“I have not told you—I have not allowed any of these good people here to tell you—the doctor was quite right; he knew all about it from the beginning, and he tells me that it is coming to the end.”

For the first time in his young life John Maple felt that shock of emotion which suddenly whitens the face, and he knew that his heart had stopped beating for the moment. He could not prevent a convulsive clutch at his father’s hand. The old man looked at him with all the affection of the past in his eyes.

“Sometimes, John dear,” he said, “I think I have not given you a fair chance. Then I say to myself that, after all, it was the war, and we were wiser to stay where we were. It has been very happy here.”

“It has, Papa,” said John.

“You have not been lonely, boy?”

“Never,” answered John, truthfully enough. “I like our friends here, and the two Englishmen as much as any. Charles is going to Oxford next term …” Then he stopped abruptly. It was amazing to him that he had forgotten in those few words the blow that had fallen, and suddenly, in spite of himself, he began to cry.