“Your mother has been telling me a lot about old days, and how looked-up-to your father and grandfather were,” he said in a quiet, friendly voice, “and I have been telling her that she must look to you to keep up the credit of the name, and show yourself worthy of the stock you come from.”

He warmed with enthusiasm to the task of rousing the boy’s family pride and putting him on his mettle. “You must stand as high in everyone’s esteem as they did, and make your mother as proud of her name in the new days as she was in the old days.”

Then he stopped in the middle of his friendly homily; the boy was looking at him with the glazed stare of a trapped and helpless animal that sees the hunter approaching. Once again Duncombe experienced the uncomfortable certainty of being face to face with a tragedy whose nature he could not guess at.