And my lord had wept—miserable, senile tears that had no dignity and no true passion. He had fawned on the man, his son, grovelled to him without shame, till the son’s manhood had revolted in him, for he would have welcomed savagery and cursing rather than moral slime. It had been like a polluted river bringing all manner of drift to the lip of a weir. And though he had ministered to his father, he had kept an implacable face and a firm mouth. He had acted as a man who knew everything, and chosen to let my lord realize that he knew it, even assuming the truth that Barbara was dead. XLVI John Gore rode for Furze Farm with many turbulent thoughts at work in him, and the raw mist that thickened from over the sea making the wet woods no more comforting than the degradation he had found at Thorn. He had been fierce at first with the man whom he called father, till my lord’s squalid ignominy had become apparent to him, and he had realized that he was dealing with a creature and not a man. For there had been no sense of strength opposed to him, no pride, no will, not even savage passion, nothing to struggle with, nothing to overcome with shame. My lord was dead in the better sense. Those weeks in Thorn had starved and frozen the soul out of him, and he had become half a savage, yet a timid, fawning savage whose consciousness was bounded by elemental things. At first there had been nothing but abhorrence and disgust for John Gore. This cringing thing with the face of an imbecile, embracing his own son’s knees, lying amid his own offal! What could a man say to this shadow of a self? Where lay the promise of judgment or of appeal? Good God! He could remember the time when he had stood in some awe of this same man because of his fine presence and his habit of command. Yet as John Gore rode through the white mist the impressions and instincts of the morning began to sift themselves and to piece up a broader, saner picture. Incidents, acts, details started forward or receded into clearer, truer perspective. The offensive flavor of the thing began to prejudice him less. He tried to see the whole untarnished truth with the sincerity of a man who is not content with mere impressions.