When the Doctor realized what had been done,--that the signature on the cheque was not his own, although it was very cleverly copied,--they saw him wince and shut his eyes. After a moment of peculiar hesitation he drew his chair up to the desk and sat down. Holding his breath, Peter watched him tear the cheque out and quietly make out another for precisely the same amount. Then the Doctor got up and stood in front of Graham with the new cheque in his hand. All the sprightliness and exhilaration with which he had entered the room had left him. He looked old and thin and humble. His shoulders stooped a little and the cheque trembled in his hand.
"Am I such an ogre that my children are afraid to bring their troubles to me?" he said, in a broken voice. "What have I ever done to deserve this, Graham? You'd only to come to me and say that you needed money and I'd have given it to you. Who am I working for? For whom have I always worked?" He held out the cheque. "Take it, and if that isn't enough ask me for more. I'd like to know why it is that you need it, if you'll be good enough to tell me; but, for God's sake, don't hurt me like this again."
Without a word--without, indeed, being able to find a word,--infinitely more crushed by this kindness than he would have been by an outburst of anger and reproach,--Graham took the cheque, turned on his heel and left the room, walking like a drunken man.
Peter watched him go. There was a feeling of great relief in his heart. Nothing that he could have done or said--nothing that Kenyon could have said in his most forcible manner, with all the weight of sophistication behind it, could have pulled Graham up and set him on a new path so well as the unexpected generosity of his father and the few pathetic words with which he underlined it.
But when Peter turned round to his father with the intention of taking him, for the first time, into his confidence and treating him as he would have treated Ranken Townsend under the same circumstances, he saw that the Doctor was crumpled up in his chair with his hands over his face and his shoulders shaking with sobs, and so he held his peace; and instead of obtaining the help that he needed so much he put his strong arm round his father in a strange protective way, as though he were the stronger man.