“I ought to tell a priest,” he said, “but I dare think that you will do as well.  If you absolve me, I shall know I may hope to be forgiven.  I have lived a double life, Estelle.  I have pretended what was not true—­not merely once or twice, but systematically, deliberately, callously.”

“I don’t believe it, dear Mister Churchouse.  You couldn’t.”

“I should never have believed it myself.  But even the old can surprise themselves, painfully sometimes.  I have lived with this perfidy for many years; but I can’t die with it.  There’s always an inclination to confess our sins to a fellow creature.  To confess them to our Maker is quite needless, because He knows them; but it’s a quality of human nature to feel better after imparting its errors to another ear.”

He broke off.

“What was I saying?  I forget.”

“That you’d done something ever so wicked and nobody knew it.”

“Yes, yes.  The books—­the books I used to receive from unknown admirers by post.  My child, there were no unknown admirers!  Nobody ever admired me, either secretly or openly.  Why should they?  I used to send the books to myself—­God forgive me.”

“If I’d only known, I’d have sent you hundreds of books,” she said.  “I did send you one or two.”

“I know it—­they are my most precious possessions.  They served in some mysterious way to soothe my bad conscience.  It would be interesting to examine and find out how they did.  But my brain can’t look into anything subtle now.  I knew you sent the books.  My good angel has recorded my thanks.  You always increased my vitality, Estelle.  You are keeping me alive at present.  You have risen in the autumn of my life as a gracious dawn; you have been the sun of my Indian summer.  You will be a good wife to Raymond.  It seems only yesterday that he was a little thing in short frocks, and Henry so proud of him.  Now Henry is dead, and Raymond wife-old and in Parliament.  A sound Liberal, like his father before him.”

“The election isn’t till next year.  But I hope he’ll get in.  They say at Bridport he has a very good chance.”

The day before he died, Mr. Churchouse seemed better and talked to Estelle of another visit from her father.

“I always esteem his great good humour and fine British instinct to live and let live.  That is where our secret lies.  We ride Empire with such a loose rein, Estelle—­the only way.  You cannot dare to put a curb on proud people.  A paradox that—­that those who fast bind don’t fast find.  The instinct of England’s greatness is in your father; he is an epitome of our virtues.  He has no imagination, however.  Nor has England.  If she had, doubtless she would not do the great deeds that beggar imagination.  That reminds me.  There is one little gift that you must have from my own hand.  A work of imagination—­a work of art.  Nobody in the world would care about it but you.  A poem, in fact.  I have written one or two others, but I tore them up.  I sent them to newspapers, hoping to astonish you with them; but when they were rejected I destroyed them.  This poem I did not send.  Nobody has seen it but myself.  Now I give it to you, and I want you to read it aloud to me, that I may hear how it sounds.”