Thou art no Hallam. No son o' mine. Get out o' my
sight wi' thee!"
Antony went without anger and without hurry. He had expected even a
worse scene. He sat down by the hall fire to think, and he was by no
means hopeless as to his demand. But the squire had received a shock
from which he never recovered himself. It was as if some evil thing
had taken all the sweetest and dearest props of love, and struck him
across the heart with them. He had a real well-defined heart-ache,
for the mental shock had had bodily sympathies which would have
prostrated a man of less finely balanced _physique_.
All night long he sat in his chair, or walked up and down his room.
The anger which comes from wronged love and slighted advantages and
false friendship alternately possessed him. The rooms he occupied in
the east wing had been for generations the private rooms of the masters
of Hallam, and its walls were covered with their pictures--fair, large
men, who had for the most part lived simple, kindly lives, doing their
duty faithfully in the station to which it had pleased God to call
them. He found some comfort in their pictured presence. He stood long
before his father, and tried to understand what he would have done
in his position. Toward daylight he fell into a chill, uneasy sleep,
and dreamed wearily and sadly of the old home.
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