constantly drifted into his mind. He remembered the black days when he
had raved like a madman because the child was alive and the mother was
dead. He had refused to see it, and when he had gone to look at it at
last it had been, such a weak wretched thing that everyone had been
sure it would die in a few days. But to the surprise of those who took
care of it the days passed and it lived and then everyone believed it
would be a deformed and crippled creature.
He had not meant to be a bad father, but he had not felt like a father
at all. He had supplied doctors and nurses and luxuries, but he had
shrunk from the mere thought of the boy and had buried himself in his
own misery. The first time after a year s absence he returned to
Misselthwaite and the small miserable looking thing languidly and
indifferently lifted to his face the great gray eyes with black lashes
round them, so like and yet so horribly unlike the happy eyes he had
adored, he could not bear the sight of them and turned away pale as
death. After that he scarcely ever saw him except when he was asleep,
and all he knew of him was that he was a confirmed invalid, with a
vicious, hysterical, half-insane temper. He could only be kept from
furies dangerous to himself by being given his own way in every detail.
All this was not an uplifting thing to recall, but as the train whirled
him through mountain passes and golden plains the man who was coming
alive began to think in a new way and he thought long and steadily and
deeply.
Perhaps I have been all wrong for ten years, he said to himself. Ten
years is a long time. It may be too late to do anything quite too late.
What have I been thinking of!
Of course this was the wrong Magic to begin by saying too late. Even
Colin could have told him that. But he knew nothing of Magic either
black or white. This he had yet to learn. He wondered if Susan Sowerby
had taken courage and written to him only because the motherly creature
had realized that the boy was much worse was fatally ill. If he had not
been under the spell of the curious calmness which had taken possession
of him he would have been more wretched than ever. But the calm had
brought a sort of courage and hope with it. Instead of giving way to
thoughts of the worst he actually found he was trying to believe in
better things.
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