My lord gave him one look, and then threw the stump of his cigarro into the fire. “It does, poor child. She has gone stark mad. There’s the blunt truth, Jack. If I have hit you hard, take it in the face like a man—and forget.” XXII John Gore asked few questions that night, but went to his room with a silent and impenetrable air that refused to betray any inward bleeding of the heart. His reserve challenged my lord to decide whether the son was really unconcerned, or whether he hid what he might feel beneath a casual surface. For Stephen Gore had spoken with great pathos of this “maid’s tragedy,” and had tempted his son with a display of sympathy to make some sentimental confession of faith. But John Gore had knocked his pipe out against the hood of the fireplace, pulled off his heavy boots, and pretended that he was sleepy after a forty-mile ride and a good supper. He had taken one of the candles from the table and gone to his room, leaving his father no wiser as to what the son felt or what he knew. John Gore did not sleep that night, despite the September wind over the open country and the dust that had been blown into his eyes. He had left my lord that he might be alone, and escape that parental curiosity and concern that grated upon the raw surface of his consciousness. For, strong man that he was, he had felt sick at heart over the news of the girl’s madness; it had come as a shock at the end of a day of dreams; sudden as a musket-ball lodged beneath the ribs, making him faint with the pain of it and with an inward flow of blood. In those few seconds, when his father had spoken to him, he had realized how deeply he had pledged himself to that mystery of mysteries. It had laid bare the truth to him as a knife lays bare the bleeding heart of a pomegranate. John Gore left the candle burning and sat at the open window, his arms crossed upon the window-ledge. It was the attitude of one whose eyes gazed out into the night with sadness and great awe, while the soul went down into the deeps to drink bitterness bravely to the dregs and gain new strength thereby. He was still there, fully dressed, when the candle guttered in the candlestick, throwing up spasmodic gleams of light before dying into the dark. The dawn came up and found him there, like one who has kept watch all night on the deck of a great ship before a battle.