"When I left the Continent," he continued, "I had a friend with me who also had been absent from home for years. At intervals during our journey, he spoke with enthusiasm of home delights and of the happiness in store for him when he and his family came together. He showed me letters from them which made me think. We crossed from Paris to Dover, and there he met his father, who had travelled a hundred miles to welcome his son the moment he set foot on English soil. They threw their arms round each other, like boys, and laughed to keep away the tears. When I came to the railway station here--just half a mile from where we stand--I looked about me with a dim hope that _my_ father had come that distance to welcome his son home. But there are fathers and fathers, Martha. Now, if I had been wise, and had set up my imaginary father before the train stopped, I should have seen him waiting for me on the platform; I should have been able to throw my arms round his neck, to press him to my heart, and to see in his eyes a kindly welcome; I should have been able to grip his hand, and to say, 'Bravo, dear old fellow! I love you!' But I was not wise, and to be forewarned by my fears was not with me to be forearmed. It is not too late, though--it is never too late. Away, you shadows!" He flicked his handkerchief in the air, as if the reality oppressed him with a phantom presence, and said in a mock-serious tone, in which earnestness struggled not vainly for a place: "Here I raise a father whom I love. I kiss his hand, and vow to pay him all respect. He shall go with me, and we shall live together." There was nothing in the housekeeper's appearance to denote that freaks of the imagination would find favour in her eyes, and yet gleams of pleasure--all the more strange because she sought to suppress them--brought light to her dull white face as Felix with fantastic grace stooped to kiss the hand of the shadow he had raised. But these signs faded away as soon as Felix had finished speaking, and her face resumed its usual dulness of expression. "Those persons who have just gone, Felix--had they anything to do with your quarrel with your father?" "I never saw them before," he replied. "Had they anything to do with the quarrel with your father?" she persisted. "There's something of the bull-dog in your nature, Martha," he said, laughing. "You never leave a subject until it is settled." "I would not hurt you, Felix," she said, softly. "I don't believe you would. Well, yes, they _had_ something to do with the immediate cause of my leaving--though it would have come to the same thing without them. We were on the verge of the precipice as they entered. I must go and see how they are getting along, and if I can be of any use to them; but I shouldn't wonder if they shrunk from me and looked upon me as an unclean thing. Are you surprised at all this, Martha?"