Absurd! If his father had had to do with a really
spendthrift and unsatisfactory son, there might have been some sense in
it. But for these trifles--these suspicions--these foolish notions of a
doctrinaire--to inflict this stigma and this yoke on him all his days!
Suddenly his wanderings along the moon-lit hill came to a stand-still.
For he recognized the hollow in the chalk--the gnarled thorn--the wide
outlook. He stood gazing about him--a shamed lover; conscious of a dozen
contradictory feelings. Beautiful and tender Diana!--"Stick to her,
Oliver!--she is worth it!" Chide's eager and peremptory tone smote on
the inward ear. Of course he would stick to her. The only thing which it
gave him any pleasure to remember in this nightmare of a day was his own
answer to Ferrier's suggestion that Diana might release him: "Do you
imagine I could be such a hound as to let her?" As he said it, he had
been conscious that the words rang well; that he had struck the right
attitude, and done the right thing. Of course he had done the right
thing! What would he, or any other decent person, have thought of a man
who could draw back from his word, for such a cause?
No!--he resigned himself.
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