"He is coming after me," said Dorothy. "I only ran on to tell you."
She ran down again, leaving the father and son to meet each other alone; and she was not out of sight when Philip reached him. There was a subtle change about him; Sidney felt that he had lost him as a son, but gained him as a friend. He was his comrade, ready to help him in every difficulty, and loyal to him with an immovable loyalty. The grave yet cordial sympathy of his manner went to Sidney's heart; and yet it chilled him. This passionately loved boy of his was a man, looking at him with a man's eyes, and the feeling latent in this clear, affectionate gaze was pity, not reverence. The change was a subtle one hardly to be seen, yet very painful to him.
"All she knows," answered Philip. "I conclude that my brother has made his escape to the mountains, and cannot be captured."
He uttered the words "my brother" simply, but Sidney winced on hearing them.
"I have not spoken of him to Phyllis or Dorothy," he said. "If they know anything it must be through the chambermaid. It was impossible to speak to them about it, though all the people in Cortina know."
"I told Phyllis I had an elder brother living," replied Philip. "I told her at Toblach."
"She talked like a girl who has read nothing but novels," he replied, evading a more direct answer.
And now, as Sidney saw his son standing before him, such a son as his whole heart could take delight in, the thought of disinheriting him in favor of the untrained and probably untamable savage, who possessed his birthright, came back to his mind with irresistible force. It seemed impossible to do it. This boy, whom he loved with passionate ardor, to be displaced by a man whose existence was a shame and a sorrow to him! He himself was in the prime of life--too old to retrieve the past and shake off its burden, and too young to escape from its consequences for many years--years of comparative dishonor and of keen disappointment. His voice was broken as he spoke again to his son.
"Philip," he said, "must we sacrifice all? Is there a necessity to own this man?"
"I cannot see it," said his father. "I am like one walking in darkness. My conscience says nothing, except that I have sinned. If I do this I act by your mother's conscience."