Mostyn kept his temper under control, however, and merely shrugged his shoulders. "I can only repeat I should have told you that I had been to the Derby, and that I see no ill whatever in what I did," he said stolidly. John Clithero drew himself upright in his chair, and his hands, resting upon his knees, were trembling. It was just as if they were itching for the cane, to the use of which they had been accustomed. "So you absolutely refuse to make any promise?" he said sternly. "You will continue to walk the evil path?" "I don't admit the evil path," replied Mostyn doggedly, "and so I can make no promise to keep from it." "Very well." John Clithero's hands dropped from his knees and he rose to his feet, pushing his chair violently aside. "Then I cut you adrift, now and for ever! You are no longer son of mine. I wash my hands of you. Hell is your portion and the portion of your fellow-sinner!" As with all his kind, the word "hell" came glibly and sonorously to the man's lips. There were times when he revelled in biblical phrase, adopting it freely to the needs of the moment. He sought to do so now, but, confused by his rage, he lost himself in a maze of ambiguity. Once Mostyn, who stood quietly listening, supplied him with the word he needed, a course naturally calculated to aggravate the situation. "Silence!" stammered John Clithero. "How dare you interrupt me, sir?" He came close to his son, his hands clenched as though it was with difficulty that he repressed a desire to strike. "Off with you!" he yelled, quite oblivious of the fact that he was standing between his son and the door; "and when you find yourself starving in the gutter don't come to me, or to your brothers, for help. The door shall be shut upon you, understand that, as if you were a beggar!" All unconsciously the man was betraying his disposition--for none was harder upon the beggar in the street than he. "I quite understand. Will you allow me to pass?" In contrast to his father, Mostyn had lost none of his dignity. As soon as John Clithero moved away, recommencing his fierce raging up and down the room, vowing his son to perdition in this world and the next, Mostyn stepped firmly to the door. John Clithero followed him, panting for breath, a sorry figure. "Go!" he spluttered, "go to your vile haunts, to your race-courses! Go!--go to the devil!" The final exclamation was not meant in the ordinary vulgar sense, but the man was quite beyond the measuring of his words. Mostyn made no reply. He quietly left the room. His father slammed the door behind him with a noise that re-echoed through the house. It was the end; the rupture was irreparable.