"You do me a great honor, sir, and are most welcome." And he went to meet him gladly. But as Blair, his valet, was softly moving about in an inner room, conversation was confined to conventional grooves until the servant with a low "good night, sir," glided away. As soon as they were alone the effort to conceal emotion was mutually abandoned. John Campbell sat on one side of the hearth, with his head dropped toward his folded hands. Allan kept his eyes fixed upon the glowing coals; but he was painfully aware of his father's unhappy presence, and waiting for him to open the conversation which he saw was inevitable. "I have had a knock-me-down blow to-night, son Allan." "And I am much to blame for it; that is what grieves me, father." "You are altogether to blame for it, Allan. I thought Mary loved you when you came home this summer; to-night I am sure she loves you. You must have made some great blunder or she would have married you." "There was a great blunder. I did the thing accidentally which I had often had in my heart to do, but which I am very certain would have been impossible to me, had it not blundered out in a very miserable way. We were speaking of my late absence, and I let her know that she had been the cause of our dispute, the reason why I had left home." "If you had planned to get 'no,' you could have taken no better way. What girl worth having would take you after you had let her understand you preferred a quarrel with your father, and an exile from your home, to a marriage with her?" "I would, for your sake, father, unsay the words if I could. Is there any excuse, any--" "There is no excuse but time and absence. Mary loves you; go away from her sight and hearing until she forgets the insult you have given her. I don't mean go away to the east or to the west coast, or even to London or Paris. I mean go far away--to China or Russia; or, better still, to America. I have friends in every large sea-port. You shall have all that my name and money can do to make your absence happy--and women forgive! Yes, they forget also; wipe the fault quite out, and believe again and again. God bless them! You can write to Mary. Where a lover cannot go he can send, and you need not blunder into insults when you write your words. You have time to think and to rewrite. I shall have to part with you again, son Allan. I feel it very bitterly." Allan did not answer at once. He sat looking at his father's bent face and heavy eyes. The blow had really aged him, for "'tis the heart holds up the body." And to-night John Campbell's heart had failed him. He realized fully that the absence and interval necessary to heal Mary's sense of wrong and insult might also be full of other elements equally inimical to his plans. Besides, he had a real joy in his son's presence. He loved him tenderly; it maimed every pleasure he had to give him up.