Words seemed to fail him, but he had clenched his hands on the cover of the book he had closed, and his blue veins stood out in ugly fashion. David sighed. Yet, notwithstanding his despair, some measure of curiosity prompted a question.
"Just why do you want to see him so much?" he asked.
"Hate," was the quiet reply. "It's twenty years since, and I've a kind of craving to see him that much older. There's hate and love, you know, David. They're both writ of here. But I tell you it's hate that lasts the longest. Love is like my flowers. Look at them--my tall hollyhocks, my bush roses, my snapdragon there. They blossom and they fade, and they lie dead--who knows where? And in the spring they come again, or something like them. And hate," he went on, pointing to a spade which lay propped against the paling, "is like that lump of metal. It's here winter and summer alike. It doesn't change, it doesn't die; there's no heat would melt it. It was there last year, it's there to-day, it will be there to-morrow."
David sighed, and looked for a moment wearily away. The old man watched him anxiously. Exercise had brought a slight flush to his pallid cheeks and an added brightness to his eyes. He sat his horse well, and his tweed riding-clothes were fashionably cut. His uncle's frown became deeper.
"You're young, David," he said, "and I know well that you and me look out on life full differently. But an oath--an oath's a sacred thing, eh?"
"An oath is a sacred thing," David repeated. "I've never denied it."
"You'll not flinch, lad?" the old man persisted eagerly.
"Then ride off now. There's no gain to either of us in talking here, for your mind is set one way and mine another. You'll have a score of years of youth left after you've done my behest."
David paused with his foot in the stirrup, withdrew it and returned to the paling.
"Let me know the worst," he begged. "I've beggared your enemy for you. I've soiled my conscience for the first time in my life. I've lied to and ruined the man who trusted in my word. What is this further deed that I must do?"
"When the time comes," he promised, "you shall know. Meanwhile, let be! It's a summer morning, and you are but young; make the most of it. Come when I send for you."