I suppose I ought to hate him too . . ."
He became aware of his eyes being wet. It was not that the man was his
father. For him it was purely a matter of hearsay which could not in
itself cause this emotion. No! It was because he had looked at him so
long that he missed him so much. The dead man had kept him on the bank
by his side. And now Heyst felt acutely that he was alone on the bank of
the stream. In his pride he determined not to enter it.
A few slow tears rolled down his face. The rooms, filling with shadows,
seemed haunted by a melancholy, uneasy presence which could not express
itself. The young man got up with a strange sense of making way for
something impalpable that claimed possession, went out of the house, and
locked the door. A fortnight later he started on his travels--to "look
on and never make a sound."
The elder Heyst had left behind him a little money and a certain
quantity of movable objects, such as books, tables, chairs, and
pictures, which might have complained of heartless desertion after many
years of faithful service; for there is a soul in things. Heyst, our
Heyst, had often thought of them, reproachful and mute, shrouded and
locked up in those rooms, far away in London with the sounds of the
street reaching them faintly, and sometimes a little sunshine, when
the blinds were pulled up and the windows opened from time to time in
pursuance of his original instructions and later reminders.
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