The Way of All Flesh
present—but somewhere else, probably in London. You need not shrink from seeing us; we shall not reproach you. We will then decide about your future.
"At present our impression is that you will find a fairer start probably in Australia or New Zealand than here, and I am prepared to find you £75 or even if necessary so far as £100 to pay your passage money. Once in the colony you must be dependent upon your own exertions.
"May Heaven prosper them and you, and restore you to us years hence a respected member of society.—Your affectionate father, T. Pontifex."
Then there was a postscript in Christina's writing.
"My darling, darling boy, pray with me daily and hourly that we may yet again become a happy, united, God-fearing family as we were before this horrible pain fell upon us.—Your sorrowing but ever loving mother,C. P."
This letter did not produce the effect on Ernest that it would have done before his imprisonment began. His father and mother thought they could take him up as they had left him off. They forgot the rapidity with which development follows misfortune, if the sufferer is young and of a sound temperament. Ernest made no reply to his father's letter, but his desire for a total break developed into something like a passion. "There are orphanages," he exclaimed to himself, "for children who have lost their parents—oh! why, why, why, are there no harbours of refuge for grown men who have not yet lost them?" And he brooded over the bliss of Melchisedek who had been born an orphan, without father, without mother, and without descent.
CHAPTER LXVIII
When I think over all that Ernest told me about his prison meditations, and the conclusions he was drawn to, it occurs to me that in reality he was wanting to do the very last
304
