"For God's sake, don't put it that way!" Blount protested. "I gave you fair warning almost at the first. I've got to fight for the right as I see it. If I don't, I shall be less than a man--less than your son. Can't you see that it is breaking my heart?"
A silence electrically surcharged with possibilities settled down upon the isolated room, with the stillness broken only by the crackling of the fire and that other distant tapping as of tree-twigs on the roof. At the end of the pause the senator took a forward step and put a hand on his son's shoulder.
"I haven't one word to say, Evan, boy," he began slowly. "As you told me that first day out here, son, it's your job to hew to the line and let the chips fall where they may. You go ahead and do just what seems right and law-abiding to you. I'd rather go to jail twice over than have you do any different. Is that what you're wanting me to say?"
Blount dropped into a chair, as if the touch on his shoulder had crushed him, and covered his face with his hands. It was hard--harder than even his own prefigurings had forecast it. Fighting against the patent facts, he had been cherishing a lingering hope that his father might be able to brush away the cruel necessity at the last moment. But now the hope was dead.
It was a long minute before he staggered to his feet and groped his way to the door, leaving his father standing before the fire and once more puffing absently at the long-stemmed pipe. When old Barnabas had helped him into his coat and had given him his hat, he found Patricia still sitting in the car, with the motor purring softly under the hood.
"Must you go back?" she queried, when he had descended the steps to climb stiffly into the seat beside her.
"I can only guess," he muttered. "Ruin and disgrace for all of us, I suppose. Of course, you understand that I have resigned from the railroad service and shall stand with my father when--when the thing is done."
She was backing the little roadster into the circling driveway to turn for the start. At the reversing moment she made her final plea.
"Don't do it, Evan--_don't do it!_ I have no more than a woman's reason to offer, but I am sure you are opening the door to a lifelong sorrow for yourself and--and--for me!"