He wished to gratify his son by these eulogies of Lucy, and some hours back he would have succeeded.  Now it had the contrary effect.

“You compliment me on my choice, sir?”

Richard spoke sedately, but the irony was perceptible and he could speak no other way, his bitterness was so intense.

“I think you very fortunate,” said his father.

Sensitive to tone and manner as he was, his ebullition of paternal feeling was frozen.  Richard did not approach him.  He leaned against the chimney-piece, glancing at the floor, and lifting his eyes only when he spoke.  Fortunate! very fortunate!  As he revolved his later history, and remembered how clearly he had seen that his father must love Lucy if he but knew her, and remembered his efforts to persuade her to come with him, a sting of miserable rage blackened his brain.  But could he blame that gentle soul?  Whom could he blame?  Himself?  Not utterly.  His father?  Yes, and no.  The blame was here, the blame was there:  it was everywhere and nowhere, and the young man cast it on the Fates, and looked angrily at heaven, and grew reckless.

“Richard,” said his father, coming close to him, “it is late to-night.  I do not wish Lucy to remain in expectation longer, or I should have explained myself to you thoroughly, and I think—­or at least hope—­you would have justified me.  I had cause to believe that you had not only violated my confidence, but grossly deceived me.  It was not so, I now know.  I was mistaken.  Much of our misunderstanding has resulted from that mistake.  But you were married—­a boy:  you knew nothing of the world, little of yourself.  To save you in after-life—­for there is a period when mature men and women who have married young are more impelled to temptation than in youth,—­though not so exposed to it,—­to save you, I say, I decreed that you should experience self-denial and learn something of your fellows of both sexes, before settling into a state that must have been otherwise precarious, however excellent the woman who is your mate.  My System with you would have been otherwise imperfect, and you would have felt the effects of it.  It is over now.  You are a man.  The dangers to which your nature was open are, I trust, at an end.  I wish you to be happy, and I give you both my blessing, and pray God to conduct and strengthen you both.”

Sir Austin’s mind was unconscious of not having spoken devoutly.  True or not, his words were idle to his son:  his talk of dangers over, and happiness, mockery.

Richard coldly took his father’s extended hand.

“We will go to her,” said the baronet.  “I will leave you at her door.”

Not moving:  looking fixedly at his father with a hard face on which the colour rushed, Richard said:  “A husband who has been unfaithful to his wife may go to her there, sir?”

It was horrible, it was cruel:  Richard knew that.  He wanted no advice on such a matter, having fully resolved what to do.  Yesterday he would have listened to his father, and blamed himself alone, and done what was to be done humbly before God and her:  now in the recklessness of his misery he had as little pity for any other soul as for his own.  Sir Austin’s brows were deep drawn down.