If he still advertised for his son he did not offer rewards for information any more; for, with the muddled lucidity of a mental derangement he had reasoned himself into a conviction as clear as daylight that he had already attained all that could be expected in that way.  What more could he want?  Colebrook was the place, and there was no need to ask for more.  Miss Carvil praised him for his good sense, and he was soothed by the part she took in his hope, which had become his delusion; in that idea which blinded his mind to truth and probability, just as the other old man in the other cottage had been made blind, by another disease, to the light and beauty of the world.

But anything he could interpret as a doubt—­any coldness of assent, or even a simple inattention to the development of his projects of a home with his returned son and his son’s wife—­would irritate him into flings and jerks and wicked side glances.  He would dash his spade into the ground and walk to and fro before it.  Miss Bessie called it his tantrums.  She shook her finger at him.  Then, when she came out again, after he had parted with her in anger, he would watch out of the corner of his eyes for the least sign of encouragement to approach the iron railings and resume his fatherly and patronising relations.

For all their intimacy, which had lasted some years now, they had never talked without a fence or a railing between them.  He described to her all the splendours accumulated for the setting-up of their housekeeping, but had never invited her to an inspection.  No human eye was to behold them till Harry had his first look.  In fact, nobody had ever been inside his cottage; he did his own housework, and he guarded his son’s privilege so jealously that the small objects of domestic use he bought sometimes in the town were smuggled rapidly across the front garden under his canvas coat.  Then, coming out, he would remark apologetically, “It was only a small kettle, my dear.”

And, if not too tired with her drudgery, or worried beyond endurance by her father, she would laugh at him with a blush, and say:  “That’s all right, Captain Hagberd; I am not impatient.”

“Well, my dear, you haven’t long to wait now,” he would answer with a sudden bashfulness, and looking uneasily, as though he had suspected that there was something wrong somewhere.

Every Monday she paid him his rent over the railings.  He clutched the shillings greedily.  He grudged every penny he had to spend on his maintenance, and when he left her to make his purchases his bearing changed as soon as he got into the street.  Away from the sanction of her pity, he felt himself exposed without defence.  He brushed the walls with his shoulder.  He mistrusted the queerness of the people; yet, by then, even the town children had left off calling after him, and the tradesmen served him without a word.  The slightest allusion to his clothing had the power to puzzle and frighten especially, as if it were something utterly unwarranted and incomprehensible.