"Father! You have a right to give me up to the hangman; but you have no right to insult me."
The next moment he fell senseless at his father's feet. It was the collapse of consciousness under excessive physical exhaustion and mental anguish; but Lorimer, who had never seen a man in such extremity, believed it to be death. A tumult of emotions rushed over him, but assistance was evidently the first duty, and he hastened for it. First he sent the housekeeper Cassie to her young master, then he went to the quarters to arouse Plato.
When he returned, Lulu and Cassie were kneeling beside the unconscious youth. "You have murdered him!" said Lulu, bitterly; and for a moment he felt something of the remorseful agony which had driven the criminal at his feet into a short oblivion. But very soon there was a slight reaction, and the father was the first to see it. "He has only fainted; bring some wine here!" Then he remembered the weakness of the voice which had said, "I am hungry, and thirsty, and weary and wretched."
When David opened his eyes again his first glance was at his father. There was something in that look that smote the angry man to his heart of hearts. He turned away, motioning Plato to follow him. But even when he had reached his own room and shut his door, he could not free himself from the influence evoked by that look of sorrowful reproach.
Plato stood just within the door, nervously dangling his straw hat. He was evidently balancing some question in his own mind, and the uncertainty gave a queer restlessness to every part of his body.
"Plato, you are to watch the young man down-stairs; he is not to be allowed to leave the house."
"He has committed a great crime, and he must abide the consequences."
"Dunno, sar. I mighty sinful ole man myself. Dunno bout de consequences."
When he was alone he rose slowly and locked his door. He wanted to do right, but he was like a man in the fury and darkness of a great tempest: he could not see any road at all. There was a Bible on his dressing-table, and he opened it; but the verses mingled together, and the sense of everything seemed to escape him. The hand of the Great Father was stretched out to him in the dark, but he could not find it. He knew that at the bottom of his heart lay a wish that David would escape from justice. He knew that a selfish shame about his own fair character mingled with his father's love; his motives and feelings were so mixed that he did not dare to bring them, in their pure truthfulness, to the feet of God; for as yet he did not understand that "like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear Him;" he thought of the Divine Being as one so jealous for His own rights and honor that He would have the human heart a void, so that he might reign there supremely. So all that terrible night he stood smitten and astonished on a threshold he could not pass.