Even Hamish, with
his naturally sunny face and sunny temper, looked gloomy as the grave.
Was he deliberating as to whether he should show that all principles of
manly justice were not quite dead within him, by speaking up at last,
and clearing his wrongfully accused brother? But then--his father's
post--his mother's home? all might be forfeited. Who can tell whether
this was the purport of Hamish's thoughts as he sat there in
abstraction, away from the light, his head upon his hand. _He_ did not
say.
Arthur rose; the silence was telling upon him. "May I say good night to
you, father?"
"Have you nothing else to say?" asked Mr. Channing.
"In what way, sir?" asked Arthur, in a low tone.
"In the way of explanation. Will you leave me to go to my restless
pillow without it? This is the first estrangement which has come
between us."
What explanation _could_ he give? But to leave his father suffering in
body and in mind, without attempt at it, was a pain hard to bear.
"Father, I am innocent," he said. It was all he could say; and it was
spoken all too quietly.
Mr. Channing gazed at him searchingly. "In the teeth of appearances?"
"Yes, sir, in the teeth of appearances."
"Then why--if I am to believe you--have assumed the aspect of guilt,
which you certainly have done?"
Arthur involuntarily glanced at Hamish; the thought of his heart was,
"_You_ know why, if no one else does;" and caught Hamish looking at him
stealthily, under cover of his fingers.
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