No one was in the stable when I unsaddled the tired mare. At the kitchen door the servants ran out with cries of joy. With a word I passed them, smelling my father’s pipe in the hall, for it was evening, and supper was over. He rose, letting his pipe drop, as I ran to fall on his great chest, and pray him to pardon, once for all, what I had felt that it was my duty to do. I was stayed a moment as I saw him. He had lost flesh continually, and his massive build and unusual height showed now a gaunt and sombre man, with clothes too loose about him. I thought that his eyes were filling, but the habits of a life controlled him. He held to a chair with his left hand, and coldly put out the right to meet my eager grasp, I stood still, my instinct of tenderness checked. I could only repeat, “Father, father, I have come home.” “Yes,” he said, “thou hast come home. Sit down.” I obeyed. Then he stooped to pick up his pipe, and raising his strong gray head, looked me over in perfect silence. “Am I not welcome,” I cried, “in my mother’s home? Are we always to be kept apart? I have done what, under God, seemed to me His will. Cannot you, who go your way so steadily, see that it is the right of your son to do the same? You have made it hard for me to do my duty. Think as seems best to you of what I do or shall do, but have for me the charity Christ teaches. I shall go again, father, and you may never see me more on earth. Let there be peace between us now. For my mother’s sake, let us have peace. If I have cost you dear, believe me, I owe to you such sad hours as need never have been. My mother--she--” During this outburst he heard me with motionless attention, but at my last word he raised his hand. “I like not thy naming of thy mother. It has been to me ever a reproach that I saw not how far her indulgence was leading thee out of the ways of Friends. There are who by birthright are with us, but not of us--not of us.” This strange speech startled me into fuller self-command. I remembered his strange dislike to hear her mentioned. As he spoke his fingers opened and shut on the arms of the chair in which he sat, and here and there on his large-featured face the muscles twitched. “I will not hear her named again,” he added. “As for thee, my son, this is thy home. I will not drive thee out of it.” “Drive me out!” I exclaimed. I was horror-struck. “And why not! Since thou wert a boy I have borne all things: drunkenness, debauchery, blood-guiltiness, rebellion against those whom God has set over us, and at last war, the murder of thy fellows.” I was silent. What could I say! The words which came from my heart had failed to touch him. He had buried even the memory of my mother. I remembered Aunt Gainor’s warnings as to his health, and set myself at once to hear and reply with gentleness.