"Do about it? I meant to keep her to myself until the right time came. Perhaps in another year bring her here and begin life in a modest way, and let my mother visit us and see for herself. I was planning it out, slowly--but this-- You see, Doctor, their ideas are all warped over there. They accept all that custom decrees and have but the one point of view. The true values of life are lost sight of. They have no hilltops like Cassandra's. Only the poets have." A quizzical smile played about the old man's mouth. He came and laid his arm across David's shoulders, and the act softened the slight sting of his words. "And--you call yourself a poet?" "Not that," said the young man, humbly, "but I have been learning. I would have scorned to be called a poet until I learned of this girl and her father. I thought I had ideals, and felt my superiority in consequence, until I came down to the beginnings of things with them." "Her--her father? Why--he's dead--he--" "And yet through her I have learned of him. I believe he was a man who walked with God, and at Cassandra's side I have trod in his secret places." "That's right. I'm satisfied now, about her. You're all right, but--but--your mother." David turned and walked to the table and sat with his head bowed on his arms. Had he been alone, he would have wept. As it was, he spoke brokenly of his old home, and the responsibilities now so ruthlessly thrust upon him. Of his mother's grief and his own, and of this inheritance that he had never dreamed would be his, and therefore had never desired, now given him by so cruel a blow. He would not shrink from whatever duty or obligation might rest upon him, but how could he adjust his changed circumstances to the conditions he had made for himself by his sudden marriage. At last it was decided that he should sail for England without delay, taking the passage already provisionally engaged for him by Mr. Stretton. "I can write to Cassandra. She will understand more easily than my mother. She sees into the heart of things. Her thoughts go to the truth like arrows of light. She will see that I must go, but she must never know--I must save her from it if I have to do so at the expense of my own soul--that the reason I cannot take her with me now is that our great friends over there are too small to understand her nature and might despise her. I must go to my mother first and feel my way--see what can be done. Neither of them must be made to suffer." "That's right, perfectly--but don't wait too long. Just have it out with your mother--all of them; the sooner the simpler, the sooner the simpler." CHAPTER XXV IN WHICH DAVID THRYNG VISITS HIS MOTHER