"Father!" said Samuel Wright passionately. He stooped and took
the helpless fingers, and held them hard in his own trembling hand.
For a moment he could not speak. Then he said some vague thing about
getting stronger. He did not know what he said; he was sorry, as one
is sorry for a suffering child. The figure in the bed looked at him
with scared eyes. One of the pillows slipped a little, and Samuel
pulled it up, clumsily to be sure, but with the decided touch of pity
and purpose, the touch of the superior. That fixing the pillow behind
the shaking helpless head, swept away the last traces of the quarrel.
He sat down by the gloomy catafalque of a bed, and when Benjamin
Wright began to say again, "M-m-my f--" he stopped him with a gesture.
"No, father; not at all. He would have gone away anyhow, whether you
had given him the money or not. No; it was my fault," the poor man
said, dropping back into his own misery. "I was hard on him. Even that
last night, I spoke harshly to him. Sometimes I think that possibly I
didn't entirely understand him."
He dropped his head in his hand, and stared blankly at the floor. He
did not see the dim flash of humor in the old eyes.