Ishmael clung on to that.  Nicky was the same.  Then—­and the light came sliding into his heart with a sensation of easing—­if Nicky were the same, then the truth might be the same too; all that he had lived by not be the more overset than was the Nicky he had known and loved all these years.  Though Nicky was not what was called his son, all he had built upon Nicky might not be valueless any more than Nicky himself had become valueless, or one jot of his character or personality been overthrown....  Nicky stood where he had; then why not more than Nicky?  These were the eternal verities, not the mere accident of fatherhood.

Ishmael gave a long, tired sigh, and his body slipped a little down into his chair; his eyes still stared at the light in the sky.  He felt suddenly terribly tired, so tired that his body grew very heavy and his mind of a thistledown lightness, which refused any more to concentrate.  Yet he knew that there were certain things he must face for the sake of Nicky, certain things he must ensure.  He made a violent effort and forced his mind and body to respond to his will.  To him, on the far rim of life, it might be vouchsafed to see how little certain things mattered after all; but there was Nicky, still in the midst of it, with a mind that lived more in the present than Ishmael’s had ever done.  It was important for Nicky’s peace of mind that he should never know he was in fact, if not in law, what so many of his family had been, what he would have thought of as “base-born.”  And Nicky so disliked Archelaus and all he stood for....  Nicky’s happiness—­that was what mattered now, what must be ensured.

Slowly Ishmael turned in his chair and faced Archelaus once more.  He bent down and spoke into his ear, but Archelaus did not stir beyond a muttering in his sleep.  As he looked at him Ishmael saw how easy it would be to slip a pillow over his mouth and hold it there till he had been put beyond the reach to hurt Nicky.  Yet he felt no temptation to do it, not because of any scruple of conscience—­the suggestion did not get as far as arousing that—­but simply for the reason that most people do not commit crime, because it does not seem a possible thing in the scheme of life as it is normally known.  Things horribly unbelievable, out of the ordinary course, did happen in life, even as this thing that had happened to him; but the angle of life was not thereby changed, it was still the things that were abnormal.  Ishmael saw the impossibleness of killing his brother even while he saw the possibility.

“Archelaus!...” he said again, speaking clearly and insistently.  “You are not to tell anyone else.  You are not to tell Nicky.  Do you hear me!”

Archelaus stirred and opened his eyes; they stared at Ishmael for a long moment without recognition.  Then a flame of understanding came into their dimmed look.

“I’m come home to tell my son,” he said.  “He’m my flesh and blood; I’m come home to tell en.”