that if you would see me again alive, you had best come soon."
He spoke loudly and angrily.
"Therefore I have come, father."
He seemed bewildered at the old man's words and manner.
"For no other reason?"
"Forgive me!" And he came again to the bed, and tried to take his father's hand. It was again snatched from him. "Father! have some pity," he went on. "What am I to do or say? Tell me—only tell me! Indeed, indeed, I would do all you would have me!"
Mr. Hadfield glared upon him with fierce, wild eyes.
"Don't whine," he said. "Be true to your nature. You were bold enough years back; there was no hypocrisy then—no canting nor shamming, but open, shameless speaking. It was bad enough, but it was better than lying. Do you remember it?"
"I do, father."
"Seven years ago! Open that Bible—look at the beginning of it—turn to the fly-leaves—an old, old book that has been years and years in this family—that contains many, many entries of the births and marriages and deaths of the Hadfields. Stop there at that blotted page—there! That was blotted out by me, with this right hand, seven years ago, one fine November morning when you turned your back upon your father's house. See, there is a date affixed to it and my signature. Your name was written there and the date of your birth—'Wilford George Saxon Carew Hadfield,' born so and so. Not a letter is now traceable; I blotted it out when I cast you off as a son of mine; I placed my hand upon the book, and I cursed you with all my heart and soul; I kissed the book, and prayed to Heaven that my curse might be brought to pass. Do you hear, sir?"
Wilford hid his death-white face in his hands. Mr. Hadfield paused for breath a few minutes, and then resumed:
"Seven years have passed, and you have come back again—to see me, it may be, for the last time. I am an old man. If I recover from this sickness—and the doctors hint that it is likely to go hard with me—but if I recover now, I can expect to live in any case but a short time longer. The Hadfields have been a long-lived race, but I feel that I am very old and weak and broken. I am not the man I have been, I am not long for this world—I know it, and I don't shrink from the knowledge. Well, you are here—come back like the Prodigal of whom Steenie read to us to-night. Have you come back now as he did? Are you penitent as he was? Have you suffered as he had?"
"Father, I am very, very sorry"
"Bah!"
"Tell me what you would have me do or say."
"Tell me how these seven years have been passed. In sorrow? in suffering? or in the most shameful profligacy and sin?"
Wilford cowered and turned away.
"Seven years! A long apprenticeship to serve with the Devil. You may well be tired of the service—glad to come back to England, to Grilling Abbots, for a change. Perhaps, too, your money has run out—your poor mother's money. She had power to will it to you, and she did will it to you. I could not have stayed it, or I would. It was yours when you were twenty-one. You have had it—yes—and spent it. Has it all gone?"
"It has."
The old man gave a wild shriek of laughter.
"I knew it." And then he added, with a triumphant air of discovery, "Another reason for coming back. Your money spent, you were pressed to come back home to try and get more—to wring it from me by whining, or to borrow it of Steenie. Borrow?—another word for robbing the poor lad's wife and children. Wasn't this so?"
"Father," said Wilford, solemnly, "I came back because I learnt that you were very ill—because there was a fear that if I was ever to receive your pardon, it could only be now. I am penitent, and pained, and very, very sorry. Do I deserve the harsh treatment I still receive at your hands? Granted that I have deserved punishment for the past, is it to be without end? For years I have been severed from my home. Is that to count for nothing? If I come back like the Prodigal, am I received as he was? Was his penitence spurned? Was a deaf ear turned to his prayer? There is a duty owing from the child to the parent: is there none from the parent to the child?"
"I like this better than whining," the old man said, in calmer tones. "There is a flavour about this of the old insolence, and daring, and shamelessness. It is infamous, but it is truthful, it is real. The hypocrite doesn't suit you. You don't play the part well. The frank scoundrel is more adapted to your kind of ability. And it requires so very little talent; it is so very easy to do. But I thank you for throwing off the mask."
"These are very cruel words, father. Heaven knows I never thought to hear such from you again."
"Or you'd not have come back? No, you looked to be fêted, and caressed, for the church bells to be set ringing, and tar barrels lighted, and oxen roasted whole. That was the plan you had laid out for yourself. To each of us you had assigned our parts of homage and affection and regard for you. We were to welcome with acclamations one who had brought shame and dishonour upon our race."
Wilford darted a strange glance of suspicion at his father. He bit his lips till the blood came, but he said nothing.
"To be greeted like the Prodigal on his return, you must have suffered like the Prodigal. Have you been in want? Have you been compelled to toil for your bread? Have you herded with swine, and been fain to eat of their husks? Have you been like to perish with hunger? Is it for these reasons you come home, poor and penitent, to be as a hired servant, and to have bread enough and to spare? No! You have lived proudly and defiantly enough—the first part of the Prodigal's career, not the second. You have wasted your substance, you have rioted, you have spared yourself no enjoyment, your life has been a list of pleasures. Profligate, gambler, yes, and—I see