A suppressed moan of anguish escaped his lips, and his father, who had come silently behind him, put his hand on his arm.
"My poor boy," he said, his gruff voice hoarse in his throat, "if only to God I could do something for you!"
And the two men looked in each other's eyes, and knew each other as never before.
Next day there was a fresh breeze, and they scudded before it on to Naples. Here Paul seemed well enough to take train, and so arrive in England in time for his birthday. He owed this to his mother, he and his father both felt. She had been looking forward to it for so long, as at the time of his coming of age the festivities had been interrupted by the sudden death of his maternal grandfather, and the people had all been promised a continuance of them on this, his twenty-third birthday. So, taking the journey by sufficiently easy stages, sleeping three nights on the way, they calculated to arrive on the eve of the event.
The Lady Henrietta would have everything in readiness for them, and her darling Paul was not to be over-hurried. Only guests of the most congenial kind had been invited, and such a number of nice girls!
The prospect was perfectly delightful, and ought to cause any young man pure joy.
It was with a heart as heavy as lead Paul mounted the broad steps of his ancestral home that summer evening, and was folded in his mother's arms. (The guests were all fortunately dressing for dinner.)
Captain Grigsby had been persuaded to abandon his yacht and accompany them too.
"Yes, I'll come, Charles," he said. "Getting too confoundedly hot in these seas; besides, the boy will want more than one to see him through among those cackling women."
So the three had travelled together through Italy and France--Switzerland had been strictly avoided.
"Paul! darling!" his mother exclaimed, in a voice of pained surprise as she stood back and looked at him. "But surely you have been very ill. My darling, darling son--"
"I told you he had had a sharp attack of fever, Henrietta," interrupted Sir Charles quickly, "and no one looks their best after travelling in this grilling weather. Let the boy get to his bath, and you will see a different person."
But his mother's loving eyes were not to be deceived. So with infinite fuss, and terms of endearment, she insisted upon accompanying her offspring to his room, where the dignified housekeeper was summoned, and his every imaginable and unimaginable want arranged to be supplied.