He held up his hand. "But you must not scold him."
Lucy turned her back, and began to look at Mr. Beebe's books.
"I taught him," he quavered, "to trust in love. I said: 'When love comes, that is reality.' I said: 'Passion does not blind. No. Passion is sanity, and the woman you love, she is the only person you will ever really understand.'" He sighed: "True, everlastingly true, though my day is over, and though there is the result. Poor boy! He is so sorry! He said he knew it was madness when you brought your cousin in; that whatever you felt you did not mean. Yet"--his voice gathered strength: he spoke out to make certain--"Miss Honeychurch, do you remember Italy?"
Lucy selected a book--a volume of Old Testament commentaries. Holding it up to her eyes, she said: "I have no wish to discuss Italy or any subject connected with your son."
"But you do remember it?"
"He has misbehaved himself from the first."
"I only was told that he loved you last Sunday. I never could judge behaviour. I--I--suppose he has."
Feeling a little steadier, she put the book back and turned round to him. His face was drooping and swollen, but his eyes, though they were sunken deep, gleamed with a child's courage.
"Why, he has behaved abominably," she said. "I am glad he is sorry. Do you know what he did?"
"Not 'abominably,'" was the gentle correction. "He only tried when he should not have tried. You have all you want, Miss Honeychurch: you are going to marry the man you love. Do not go out of George's life saying he is abominable."
"No, of course," said Lucy, ashamed at the reference to Cecil. "'Abominable' is much too strong. I am sorry I used it about your son. I think I will go to church, after all. My mother and my cousin have gone. I shall not be so very late--"
"Especially as he has gone under," he said quietly.
"What was that?"
"Gone under naturally." He beat his palms together in silence; his head fell on his chest.
"I don't understand."
"As his mother did."
"But, Mr. Emerson--MR. EMERSON--what are you talking about?"
"When I wouldn't have George baptized," said he.
Lucy was frightened.
"And she agreed that baptism was nothing, but he caught that fever when he was twelve and she turned round. She thought it a judgment." He shuddered. "Oh, horrible, when we had given up that sort of thing and broken away from her parents. Oh, horrible--worst of all--worse than death, when you have made a little clearing in the wilderness, planted your little garden, let in your sunlight, and then the weeds creep in again! A judgment! And our boy had typhoid because no clergyman had dropped water on him in church! Is it possible, Miss Honeychurch? Shall we slip back into the darkness for ever?"